Highly Selected Examples

[metal56]

Actually, according to this kind of argument, we can use Simple Past and Present Perfect with absolute freedom, without any restriction. But what is the point? Do students get anything concrete here? Absolutely not. Teachers are only pouring vagueness to students. What is their purpose? It is finally this kind of vagueness that sends both teachers and students, in many forums, ask for some concrete guidelines.

Shun

What a silly conclusion. The teacher has more time to explain the finer points of his/her statement in the class than he/she does here. We are not tied to discussing the simplified explanations we will give to students, we are in an Applied Linguistics forum.

See how fascinated my students were by having me explain why sometimes I say:

I live in Madrid.

and other times:

I'm living in Madrid.


I'll let you explain to the students why that should alternate so.


Why, if the classroom is freezing when we come in because a window is open and there has been no class for many hours, I might say:

Brrr! Somebody left a window open.

On the other hand, if there had been a class just prior to ours, I might say:

Brrr! Somebody's left a window open.

And then again I might say something altogether different.

[metal56]

We have reached our splitting point. No more discussions are needed.

Shun

Again you have the arrogance to think you can decide when a discussion ends. If you wish to leave this discussion thread, do so, but don't preach to others about when it should be terminated.

Goodbye for now, see you in another thread. We here may continue this discussion without your permission!

[shuntang]

We have reached our splitting point. No more discussions are needed.

Shun

Again you have the arrogance to think you can decide when a discussion ends. If you wish to leave this discussion thread, do so, but don't preach to others about when it should be terminated.

Goodbye for now, see you in another thread. We here may continue this discussion without your permission!

You claim you can feel and look at Time, but I cannot. You have the ability I don't have. On what ground shall we discuss more? I concluded the end in logic, not in arrogance.

Shun

[metal56]

You claim you can feel and look at Time, but I cannot.

Shun

Mmm? So you've never said:

Now let me see, when was it?

I remember years ago we went to...

It feels late, is it?

That was over in what seemed like a flash.

or similar?


Maybe in your own culture and language you don't have that possibility of experiencing time subjectively and voicing it objectively, we do.

[shuntang]

You claim you can feel and look at Time, but I cannot.

Shun

Mmm? So you've never said:

Now let me see, when was it?

I remember years ago we went to...

It feels late, is it?

That was over in what seemed like a flash.

or similar?


Maybe in your own culture and language you don't have that possibility of experiencing time subjectively and voicing it objectively, we do.

You call this as feeling the time and looking at the time!!


Shun

[metal56]

You claim you can feel and look at Time, but I cannot.

Shun

Mmm? So you've never said:

Now let me see, when was it?

I remember years ago we went to...

It feels late, is it?

That was over in what seemed like a flash.

or similar?


Maybe in your own culture and language you don't have that possibility of experiencing time subjectively and voicing it objectively, we do.

You call this as feeling the time and looking at the time!!


Shun

You were right, you have nothing more to say on this subject. Best to depart. Bye!

[shuntang]

The cruelest thing on earth is, we teachers pretend we clearly understand the difference between Simple Past and Present Perfect, and make students believe so. A student who wants to look normal has to say, "Yes sir, I understand the difference." We actually force the student to lie. After school, however, she or he would visit forums and ask, "Help! What is the difference between the two tenses?"

If all the teachers today agree we can "look at" the past when JFK was killed, a student will have to behave like normal and say, "Yes, I saw it too." What else can a student do?

However, a Tregidgo P. S. in his noted article How far have we got with the present perfect? (E.L.T. Journal 38/4:286-289, 1984, published by Oxford University Press), admitted we don't know much about the tense. Please see:
http://www3.oup.co.uk/eltj/
Now, Metal56 claimed he can literally have a good grip of the time, thus explaining the tense. I really want to know from Metal56, how does the "Present Perfect Time" feel like?

Shun Tang

[metal56]

The cruelest thing on earth is, we teachers pretend we clearly understand the difference between Simple Past and Present Perfect, and make students believe so.

I would imagine there are crueler things. Bombing a train full of commuters might win there, but I get your need to express you feelings in such an extreme sentence.

Now, Metal56 claimed he can literally have a good grip of the time, thus explaining the tense. I really want to know from Metal56, how does the "Present Perfect Time" feel like?


Shun Tang

And I thought our conversation was over.

Before I answer your question, could you answer a few of the ones I've recently asked you? Go back to the "living in/live in" example and tell me why YOU think one would be chosen over the other. From another thread, answer what the "it" is in:

It can be red.

If you want folks to answer your questions, you have to play ball-

[shuntang]

And I thought our conversation was over.

After I knew you have the power to feel and look at the past when JFK was killed, and I don't have such power, our discussion is literally over.

Shun

[Stephen Jones]

we teachers pretend we clearly understand the difference between Simple Past and Present Perfect

I don't know what class of teachers you belong to Shuntang, but ithe "we teachers" that include me, larry and Metal 56 to neme just three, do understand the difference perfectly and are in almost total agreeement abut it.

And after three or four years of classs and a couple of thousand examples our students tend to get the hang of it too.

[shuntang]

I don't know what class of teachers you belong to Shuntang, but ithe "we teachers" that include me, larry and Metal 56 to neme just three, do understand the difference perfectly and are in almost total agreeement abut it.

And after three or four years of classs and a couple of thousand examples our students tend to get the hang of it too.

Stephen, would you tell me the difference? I am afraid it is another superhuman power like looking and feeling at the Time.

Shun

[shuntang]

I don't know what class of teachers you belong to Shuntang, but ithe "we teachers" that include me, larry and Metal 56 to neme just three, do understand the difference perfectly and are in almost total agreement abut it.

Since Met56’s understanding is to look at the time and feel it, and you three gentlemen are in almost total agreement, I have to reason that you all have the same power to feel and look at the Time, like a past time as JFK was shot during parade. I wonder if you guys feel and look at it rather clearly or not, in the viewpoint of today? Do you feel the time clearly or not? Can you see the details now, I wonder?

Shun

[Ed]

Since Met56’s understanding is to look at the time and feel it, and you three gentlemen are in almost total agreement, I have to reason that you all have the same power to feel and look at the Time, like a past time as JFK was shot during parade. I wonder if you guys feel and look at it rather clearly or not, in the viewpoint of today? Do you feel the time clearly or not? Can you see the details now, I wonder?

I'm not sure I understand Shun's question, but today I can certainly say "JFK was killed" and not "JFK has been killed".
Superpower indeed!

[Ed]

From an earlier post by Shun Tang:

THE EVOLUTION OF A TENSE

It is a long story. Nowadays as we explain the modal verb, people might go so far as to say this:

Quote:
Permission:
(e.g.) Can I smoke in this room?
(e.g.) You can't smoke here, but you can smoke in the garden.
(e.g.) You can meet her tomorrow, but tonight you have to stay home.

Concession:
(e.g.) OK, OK, you win!. You can go there once you've finished.
(e.g.) I surrender, you can do with me what you will.

They honestly think so, to tell the very truth. However, they are wrong. Actually, it is the sentence, not the modal verb, that denotes permission, or concession.

So what happens if we change "can" to "did", for example, while leaving the rest of the sentence as it is?
(a) Can I smoke in this room? vs.
(b) Did I smoke in this room? (as if I didn't know!)

Is it the sentence that matters?

[shuntang]

Since Met56’s understanding is to look at the time and feel it, and you three gentlemen are in almost total agreement, I have to reason that you all have the same power to feel and look at the Time, like a past time as JFK was shot during parade. I wonder if you guys feel and look at it rather clearly or not, in the viewpoint of today? Do you feel the time clearly or not? Can you see the details now, I wonder?

I'm not sure I understand Shun's question, but today I can certainly say "JFK was killed" and not "JFK has been killed".
Superpower indeed!

Ed, I would explain anything I said if there is confusion. It won't be fair as some persons would conclude they didn't understand anything from me after a very long discussion that they want to stop.

As you see, time is invisible, and in simple words, we cannot see or feel time. But a few persons here are in almost total agreement that they can feel and look at the time, of course including the past time when JFK was shot. I now ask them do they now see the past time clearly? Do they see how many shooters there? I ask this because those who cannot feel and look at the time still have many questions about the shooting.

......but today I can certainly say "JFK was killed" and not "JFK has been killed". Superpower indeed!

I’m too not so sure what you are pointing at. Do you have a rule for the student to say that "JFK was killed" and not "JFK has been killed"? If you have any rule about any tense, any rule at all, please tell me.

Actually, a past person doesn't necessarily entail Simple Past, and this is why we have many kinds of tenses to express many kinds of time:
Ex: Even today, JFK lives in all our hearts.
Ex: JFK has been my hero since I knew about his story.

Now, it is your turn to teach me why we can only say "JFK was killed".
==================

From an earlier post by Shun Tang:

THE EVOLUTION OF A TENSE

It is a long story. Nowadays as we explain the modal verb, people might go so far as to say this:

Quote:
Permission:
(e.g.) Can I smoke in this room?
(e.g.) You can't smoke here, but you can smoke in the garden.
(e.g.) You can meet her tomorrow, but tonight you have to stay home.

Concession:
(e.g.) OK, OK, you win!. You can go there once you've finished.
(e.g.) I surrender, you can do with me what you will.

They honestly think so, to tell the very truth. However, they are wrong. Actually, it is the sentence, not the modal verb, that denotes permission, or concession.

So what happens if we change "can" to "did", for example, while leaving the rest of the sentence as it is?
(a) Can I smoke in this room? vs.
(b) Did I smoke in this room? (as if I didn't know!)

Is it the sentence that matters?

I promise you the sentence does matter. From the very beginning, teachers were wrongly teaching students through the meaning of the sentence. Today we instinctively and subconsciously regard the tense expresses whatever a sentence expresses, though we don't mention the role of the sentence anymore.

You may even deny me and claim that my example in THE EVOLUTION OF A TENSE is not a grammatical or readable structure:
Ex: Tommy (go) to school every day.
So you may see nothing here. Actually, in another forum a person did argue this way, though he was immediately denied by other readers.

Indeed, if a young student habitually forgets to use the tense:
Ex: Tommy go to school every day. (not grammatical)
the dutiful teacher will tell her or him, “Now as you want to describe a habit, you have to use Simple Present, because Simple Present is used to tell habit.” That is how we acquire the instinct of using Simple Present to express habit. But what I want to point out here is that even without the tense, the teacher can still see a habit -- believe it or not.

Now we may test the examples of Permission or Concession. Please compare the following modified examples with yours in the quotation above.

Permission
(e.g.) I smoke in this room?
(e.g.) You not smoke here, but you smoke in the garden.
(e.g.) You meet her tomorrow, but tonight you have to stay home.

Concession
(e.g.) OK, OK, you win! You go there once you've finished.
(e.g.) I surrender, you do with me what you will.

From all these examples I have got rid of the modal verb CAN, but from the sentences alone we can still clearly see permission and concession. Of course, you may again argue that after the removal of CAN, you can see nothing here from the unreadable, ungrammatical structures.
=================

(b) Did I smoke in this room? (as if I didn't know!)

Ed, please!! You have already understood it is a permission. As you use DID here, you have to add the brackets to imply "as if you didn't know" whether there was the permission or not. In other words, the brackets have betrayed you.
In other words again, to add difficulty to the example for me, you shouldn't have added the brackets.
===============

At last, as I will challenge anyone anywhere, tell me a rule to explain English tenses, if there is. So far, there has been no reasonable rule at all. I am not responsible if I don't give the alternative answers. But I have listed all the reasonable answers here in this present thread.

By resurrecting the function of the sentence, to explain a tense is now simple and easy. The only small difficulty is how to argue with the old habit of explaining a tense.

Shun