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Editor: Douglas Adams |
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Sometimes students like to use different times in their independent and dependent clauses. For instance, they will use the past in the dependent clause and the present in the independent clause. Ex... After Tom ate at McBurgers, he gets sick.....or.... Before Tom eats at McBurgers, he washed his hands. ...Logically, these sentences make sense since the past clearly happens before the present. Thus, Tom ate the burgers in the past and he is sick in the present. Unfortunately, adverb clauses require us to have the same time in both clauses. Notice, that I said time, and not tense. By time, I mean past - present- or - future. For example, it's perfectly ok to write... Before Tom ate at McBurgers, he had washed his hands. The two actions are in two different tenses, yet they are still both in the past time. That said, what can we make of a sentence like... Ex... Before I get home everyday, I have worked for eight hours. get is in the present time and expresses a habitual action while have worked is actually in the past time. Probably the best way to explain this seeming contradiction to the previous explanation is by realizing that the meaning of before in this sentence [and other sentences like it with the simple present and present perfect] is one of by the time, and by the time requires us to use the perfect tense in the independent clause. Issue Two: When or While + the perfect tense. We tell students that while and when are for actions that happen at the same time or close to the same time. Thus, a sentence like... Ex... When Tom ate dinner, he had watched TV.... ...is not correct because had watched means it happened before he ate. To "fix" this, sometimes students will write a sentence like.... Ex... When Tom had eaten dinner, he had watched TV. Although both actions now happen at the same time, a native speaker would probably not use such a construction. So, how do we explain the problem to our students? If you have taught them that the meaning of the perfect tense is before, then you can ask them the question: Why would you use a perfect tense when there is no before relationship?
For more information and a complete set of lesson plans on teaching the perfect tenses as well as all the other tenses, please see...
Teaching the Verb Tense/Aspect System.
There is another seeming exception to the provision against using the simple past and past perfect with when/while, and it can be seen in the following example... Ex... When Tom was in college, he had studied physics. This sentence works because when Tom was in college covers a long period of time, and within that period of time, studying physics could have happened before he studied another subject. (one that is implied and not directly mentioned).
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Next up... Contrast subordinators. |
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