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Ask for help > Past perfect, past simple
Past perfect, past simple
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abba
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Past perfect, past simple
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Good afternoon, can we consider the following sentence correct...? After we had dinner, we all were sitting down in the garden. I �d say that we should change were sitting for sat, but I was just wondering if we could use past continuous. Thanks |
4 Feb 2013
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elu�s
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your correction is right. Past Continuous is used when we have an idea in mind of the past simple. In this case, dinner is perfect, not simple. Thus, continuous is not apropriate if we consider the chronollogical order of events. Hope it helps. :) |
4 Feb 2013
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yanogator
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In informal writing, what you have is fine, although I would say "we were all sitting" rather than "we all were sitting". In formal writing, the first clause should be "After we had had dinner". Also, in either case, I would also remove "down", unless it is indicating that the garden is at a lower level. "Sit down" is the action (sentarse, I think, in Spanish), while "sit" is positional (sentar).
Bruce |
4 Feb 2013
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abba
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You �re right yanogator, the example said �after we had had dinner �, it was my mistake at writing the sentence. Thanks a lot for your explanation. |
4 Feb 2013
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abba
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You �re right yanogator, the example said �after we had had dinner �, it was my mistake at writing the sentence. Thanks a lot to both of you for your explanation.
Bel�n |
4 Feb 2013
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yanogator
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OK, abba, with that in mind, I �ll say "After we had had dinner, we were all sitting in the garden" or "After we had had dinner, we all sat in the garden". Either option is good (again, without "down").
Bruce |
4 Feb 2013
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