Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[syoshioka99]

1) The publishing company published the book which the author had written in her younger days.

2) 1) The publishing company published the book which the author wrote in her younger days.

(question1) Which is correct?

(question2) Do both have the same meanings?

3) When I visited my hometown this summer, I found the city diffferent from what it had been ten years ago.

4) When I visited my hometown this summer, I found the city diffferent from what it was ten years ago.

5) When I visited my hometown this summer, I found the city diffferent from what it had been ten years before.

(question3) Which is correct?
(question4) Do they(3~5) all have the same meanings?

Satoru
Tochigi, Japan

[Mister Micawber]

.
All are correct. 1/2 mean the same; 3/4/5 mean the same.

Because the sequence of past events is clear, and in the second set, the time of the more recent past event is stated ('this summer'), the past perfect among these examples is used to emphasis the precedence of the event in its clause.
.
_________________
"I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences." � Gertrude Stein
...............
Canadian-American who teaches English for a living at Mr Micawber's

[CP]

Q1: Because the sequence of events is (1) book is written, (2) book is published maybe years later, (3) information about publishing the book is written, I would favor 1 "The publishing company published the book that the author had written in her younger days." The past perfect tells us that the writing took place earlier than the decision to publish.

Q2: For similar reasons, the best sentence is 5: "When I visited my hometown this summer, I found the city different from what it had been ten years before." Although 4 is all right (using "ago" instead of "before" seems right with the past tense), 3 does not sound right, using "ago" with the past perfect.

Yours truly, CP

[Lifter]

[CP]

Well, they don't refer to the same point in time in the past.

I think the difference between "ago" and "before" is that "ago" dates from the time the statement is made, while "before" dates from the point in time referred to.

I bought my car four years ago. That was three years before I moved into my present office--which was, obviously, one year ago.

"3) When I visited my hometown this summer, I found the city diffferent from what it had been ten years ago." Do you mean 10 years ago as of today, or 10 years ago as of the time of the visit? The problem in interpretation is more obvious if instead of "this summer" the visit had occurred , say, in 2002. Then the 10 years ago is either 1992 or 1996, depending upon how I interpret "ago."

"5) When I visited my hometown this summer, I found the city diffferent from what it had been ten years before." This is clearly referring to 10 years before the visit. If the visit was in 2002 instead of this summer, then "10 years before" tells us precisely that you mean the year 1992, not 1996.

Does that help?

Yours truly, CP

[Lifter]

I understood the difference between ago and before but returning to my question "10 years before" nevertheless expresses particular time in the past. And there is a rule we should use past simple if we speak about particular time. In that case we used past perfect. Why? Maybe it's ok only for past perfect (using for example 10 years before), and isn't ok for
present perfect. For instance, I come to town and say (present time)
"This town is different than it have been 10 years before". I suppose it's not correct.

[CP]

Dear Lifter,

Yes, "10 years before" does refer to a particular time in the past: the time that is 10 years before the time refferred to by the speaker / writer. In Satoru's sentences 3, 4, and 5, the reference time was "when I visited my hometown this summer."

Without something more by way of explanation from the speaker / writer, "before" starts measuring backward from the time referred to by the speaker, while "ago" measures backward in time from now.

If you use "ago" instead of "before," as was done in sentence 3, you risk misleading the reader / listener. Was it 10 years ago from now or 10 years ago from some time past? ("This summer" is not very far in the past, but it must be in the past because the writer / speaker already finished visiting. It would be clearer if the sentence used a date instead of "this summer.")

Sentence 4 tells us that the city was different from 10 years ago, meaning 10 years before now. If the sentence had given the time of the visit as 2001 instead of this summer, then the reader would know that the visit was five years ago (2001), and the city was different then from what it had been five years before that, 10 years ago (1996).

Sentence 5 tells us precisely that the city was different from 10 years before the visit. If the sentence had given the time of the visit as 1995 instead of this summer, then the reader would know that the city was different in 1995 than it had been in 1985.

Yours truly, CP

[Lifter]

Thanks for comprehensive reply. So how I understood:
1. We can use particular time in past perfect (had been 10 years before),
but cannot use "ago" (had been 10 years ago - not correct).
But can we say "When I visited the town in 2002, I found it was different from what it was (instead of had been) 10 years before".
2. If we speak about present time can we say
"This town is different from what it have been 10 years before" or we can say only "it was 10 years ago" or maybe "it used to be 10 years ago"
3.One more situation.
Mr.A says to Mr.B "Can you here that sound?"
Mr.B says "No". 30 minutes later, sound increased.
Mr.B says "Only now I can hear that sound, but ...
1) I have not heard anything before
2) I did not hear anything before
What tenses we sould use in such situations?
4.Example: Now I work at a new job(A), but right up to now I worked at the previous job(B).
So how I can say about previous job(B):
1. I have worked at B before (now)
2. I worked at B before
Thank you in abvance for your patience