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ESL forum >
Grammar and Linguistics > Tell us something you had done but you wish you hadn īt
Tell us something you had done but you wish you hadn īt
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lshorton99
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I see no problem with the sentence. The double past perfect is fine, in my opinion. It just emphasizes the past nature of the regret, similar to the third conditional.
Lindsey
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14 Jul 2010
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Apodo
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As a native speaker I would say: Tell us something that you īve done and wish you hadn īt.
This statement is wrong: something you had done and wish you hadn īt |
14 Jul 2010
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Zora
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I agree, I see the sentence as being fine.
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14 Jul 2010
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anitarobi
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The sentence is fine. It īs unreal wish in the past, so it īs exactly like the third conditional. No doubt there are possibilities to say it with other tenses, but then we īre saying a slightly different thing. Your original sentence is correct. It meansit happened it the past and you regretted doing it. There īs no link to the present (except that maybe you īre still sorry about it, but that īs not ahwt the sentence is about)! |
14 Jul 2010
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PhilipR
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Although grammatically correct in certain situations (talking about a past event that precedes another past event), it just doesn īt feel right. I would definitely opt for
- ... have done and wish you hadn īt or -... did and wish you hadn īt (done)
Had done and wish you hadn īt: Suppose you īre talking to someone who spent part of his life behind bars. When talking about this particular period, you could ask īTell me what you had done ( īdid � would be correct as well) and wish you hadn īt (because it hot you in trouble) �. |
14 Jul 2010
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aliciapc
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Libertybelle, debk, lindsey and linda .... are right, AND they are native speakers ... |
14 Jul 2010
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juliamontenegro
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Gee,
This is getting good! :)
Thereīs no majority to go with. Each person (native or not) thinks something different.
When you say "tell me something you had done" it is a fact, right? But using the past perfect gives us the sense of preceding another action in the past according to gramar, which action was that? What comes in the second part of the period must throw us back to some moment before the first action, which would be when I was able to change anything and not to the same time of the regreted action. "you wish you hadnīt" but you did (!) or have done (!) not had done, see the point? |
14 Jul 2010
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