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juliete · Joined: 14 Sep 2006 Posts: 79

I don’t understand the meaning of in.

Are the following sentences grammatically correct?

#1 Tom will be sick in two weeks.
#2 Tom will have been sick in two weeks.
#3 Tom is sick in two weeks.
#4 Tom has been sick in two weeks.
#5 Tom was sick in two weeks.
#6 Tom had been sick in two weeks.

Lorikeet · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 1877 Location: San Francisco

juliete · Joined: 14 Sep 2006 Posts: 79

Lorikeet,

Thank you very much for your detailed and clear help. I think I now understand well.

I’m also thinking of a little bit different situations, #7 to #12, where the meaning of in could be different from that in #1 to #6 because the verb is different.

Are the following sentences grammatically correct?

#7 Tom will see Mary in two weeks.
#8 Tom will have seen Mary in two weeks.
#9 Tom sees Mary in two weeks.
#10 Tom has seen Mary in two weeks.
#11 Tom saw Mary in two weeks.
#12 Tom had seen Mary in two weeks.

I suppose #7, 8, 9, 11, 12 are correct and #10 is incorrect.
But I'm not sure and can’t tell why.

Lorikeet · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 1877 Location: San Francisco

juliete · Joined: 14 Sep 2006 Posts: 79

Lorikeet,

Thank you very much for your detailed, clear, and warm help. I feel I’m getting close to the goal.

My English is awfully terrible “to make a particular story” so I searched the web for some sentences where the present perfect, the past, and the past perfect tense is used together with in three days.

I found some. But I can’t judge if they’re incorrect or not.
Are they incorrect?

#13 the present perfect tense
https://www.rte.ie/sport/cycling/2017/0512/874707-bennett/
Irish sprinter Sam Bennett has finished third in a Giro d’Italia stage for the second time in three days.

#14 the past tense
http://www.worldexteriors.com/
We have solar panels on our roof so it was a little more complicated than a standard residential roofing job; they finished in three days!

#15 the past perfect tense
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q1ukCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1816&lpg=PA1816&dq=finished+%22in+three+days%22&source=bl&ots=gzviRd6Q3_&sig=0A-_LzHGX6olotj_vjX8H7DB-vQ&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiOsLi-zNPWAhVEupQKHaqPCEk4ChDoAQhDMAQ#v=onepage&q=finished%20%22in%20three%20days%22&f=false
And she was working solidly on the book, noting that she had done more in three days under these circumstances than she generally managed in a week.

If they’re correct, I think #10 to #12 are correct.
Am I wrong?

Lorikeet · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 1877 Location: San Francisco

They are all correct, but used a bit differently than your previous examples. These seem to be more like "in a three day period."

juliete · Joined: 14 Sep 2006 Posts: 79

Lorikeet,

Thank you very much for your detailed, clear, and warm help.
I think I well understand the meaning of in now.

I’ve been wondering for a long time in the maze in the terribly dense fog of the meaning of in. I would never have been able to get out of it myself.

You saved me. You gave me a new world of English. You are my god.

I don’t know how to tell my thanks to you.
Thank you very much.