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ESL forum >
Ask for help > Tense confusion
Tense confusion
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Koenigin der Nacht
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Tense confusion
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Hello everyone!
I would like to ask you something, since I am a bit unsure.
Is it in any way correct to say:
� �Did the man work all night? � �
or just stick to the past continuous since it has � �all night � �? And if both are correct, is there a difference in meaning?
Thanks in advance for your answers.
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22 Mar 2014
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EstherLee76
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You can use either the simple past or the past continuous in this case. |
22 Mar 2014
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cunliffe
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It �s fine. It �s a finished action. Statement � The man worked all night. � Question �Did the man work all night? �
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22 Mar 2014
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Koenigin der Nacht
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Thank you for your answers.
Sometimes, teaching too much by the book (and the grammar rules) makes you disregard the feeling of language. |
22 Mar 2014
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cunliffe
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....Whereas I, Koenigin, as a native speaker, generally know what �s what, but I can �t really explain why!!! |
22 Mar 2014
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jannabanna
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I agree Lynne, as a native speaker, that �s a difficult one to explain, but if you take these sentences:
I �ve been working all day today. I worked all day yesterday. ("I was working all day yesterday" - seems strange to me and I don �t know why - what do you other native speakers think?)
I haven �t used the same tenses as Koenigin, but I was trying to show that "all day" doesn �t necessarily need a continuous form.
Janet |
23 Mar 2014
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