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Ask for help > Which tense to use?
Which tense to use?
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LenkaW
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Which tense to use?
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Dear colleagues,
which version is correct and why?
a) Find someone who has (ever) found money while he/she was
walking in the street.
or
b) Find someone who (ever) found money while he/she was
walking in the street.
Is there any difference between American and British English?
Thank you very much for your help.
Lenka
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24 Sep 2013
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kawyte
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Personally I would use A. I always teach my students that if the sentence focuses on the action (or in this case such a life experience of finding money in the street) then present perfect should be used. And as I �m not a native speaker, so not sure about the difference between AmE and BrE, but I �ve read somewhere that in AmE past simple is very often used instead of present perfect. So I believe that grammatically both A and B are OK. |
24 Sep 2013
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Yolandaprieto
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I would use the present perfect because you are asking about something that has to do with the present, I mean it could have happened a long time ago or just one second ago, so it extends to the moment of speaking. That �s the theory but what native speakers really use, it �s something I really don �t know.
Hope it helps
Yolanda
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24 Sep 2013
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yanogator
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Generally, we use the Present Perfect for life experiences, such as this. However, in AmE, at least, it wouldn �t be uncommon to hear the simple past here, since it would be an event that happened at a specific time in the past. So, "has ever found" is the official best answer, but "ever found" is also fairly common in the US.
Bruce
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24 Sep 2013
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LenkaW
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Dear colleagues,
thank you very much for your help and for the explanation.
Have a nice day.
Lenka
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26 Sep 2013
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