Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[hela]

Dear teachers,

Would you say : �I first experienced terror when I was 10.�
or
�I had first experienced terror when I was 10.� ?

We would say �I had known great poverty when I was 10.�
And not
�I knew great poverty when I was 10.� Right? But why?

See you,
Hela

[pugachevV]

You can actually say all of those and they would be correct.
Usually , if you use the pluperfect tense (past perfect), you are referring to something farther back in time than something else.
For example; I had first experienced terror when I was ten years old, but it was nothing to the terror I experienced when I came face to face with a lion in the bush.

[hela]

Thank Pugachev. And what about the second set of sentences? The ones with "had known / knew great poverty"?

See you.

[bud]

I had known great poverty when I was 10, but by the time I was 16 my father was a millionaire.

I knew great poverty when I was 10. Now I'm revisting it at 40!

[hela]

Hi Bud,

If I say : "As / While a student / When he was a student he had known great poverty." Is the sentence complete or should I add something else?

kind regards

[bud]

They are complete by themselves, but you could, of course, add something else.

"When I was a student..." might not work with "had been" in a strict grammatical sense. That's only a guess, though. If it's not strictly grammatical, it'd certainly pass muster in casual (American) speech.

Keep up the great work! (Are you still planning on a career as an interpreter?)

[hela]

Yes I am, Bud.
I hope that my questions seem interesting to some of the members of this forum. But most of all, I hope that the moderators are not too bored with my tortuous questions!
My deep thanks to all of those who are helping me on this forum.

[pugachevV]

One day we may see you at the United Nations. Good luck!

[hela]

Thanks pugachev. Are you a translator there yourself?

[pugachevV]

No, Hela, I'm not a translator, it's a very difficult skill to do simultaneous translation. It's like singing descant in the choir, which I was also lousy at!