Korean Job Discussion Forums

Passions · Joined: 31 May 2006

I'm kind of stumped here. My student asks how can a sentence have two verbs with two different tenses, such as:

"She helped me make cookies."

My student prefers, "She helped me made cookies," keeping the tenses both in the past.

ARghghghghghghg!!!! Embarassed

tanklor1 · Joined: 13 Jun 2006

edwardcatflap · Joined: 22 Mar 2009

It's the stem form of the verb, sometimes called 'the infinitive without to' which can be used together with another verb. e.g. 'I made him stop' , 'I let her go' and doesn't change according to the tense of the first verb. Actually 'help' can take the stem form or the infinitive

I helped him to make cookies '

or

I helped him make cookies.

The Cosmic Hum · Joined: 09 May 2003 Location: Sonic Space

some waygug-in · Joined: 25 Jan 2003

If you want to use the past tense for both verbs, you would have to say something like this:

She helped me and we made cookies.

The difference would be that with the above sentence you are talking about a single completed event.

The use of the bare infinitive indicates that it may be 1 or more events that you are talking about.

She helped me make cookies. (could be several times in the past)

Hope this helped you make sense of it.

bobbybigfoot · Joined: 05 May 2007 Location: Seoul

The posters above making reference to the infinitive being missing is right (bare infinitive).

Perhaps Op it is time you you start learning English grammar.

lifeinkorea · Joined: 24 Jan 2009 Location: somewhere in China

edwardcatflap · Joined: 22 Mar 2009

In English certain verbs can be followed by other verbs. The second verb can be in different forms (infinitive, bare infinitive or gerund) and there are certain patterns governing what form the second verb can be. These different possible patterns have to be studied and which verbs can follow which pattern have to be learned. Also which prepositions go with which verbs and whether you can use an object or not. Sometimes there are rules which dictate these patterns (e.g. verbs expressing our feelings about something are usually followed by a gerund - but not always) and other times there aren't.

I've never seen a text book or grammar book able to explain it more specifically than this. I don't think the explanation above would 'address the student's curiosity' any more than saying 'that's how we say it in English' because sometimes that's the most honest explanation