When, as soon as

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 10:47 am

I was talking to this teacher the other day, we were discussing this sentence:

(1) How did you feel when you had finished your quest?

He told me that after when and as soon as we can only use the past simple, is that so? Are there any other possibilities which I could use the past perfect in such structures?

José

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 11:10 am

"That teacher" was quite wrong, Jose, as you obviously guessed.....who knows how this rule was dreamed up.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 5:20 pm

Let me see if I understand you correctly. You mean out there there's a teacher telling his students you can only use past simple with when or as soon as? They'll let anyone in these days....

I really hate the "jigsaw" view of grammar that says you can't put certain tenses with certain words. Such rules are almost always wrong and they don't help understanding. The student who chooses I went to London last week over I have been to London last week because he's been told that you can't use present perfect with definite time references may be showing he knows how to apply a "rule" but it doesn't necessarily follow that he actually understands what past simple and present perfect actually mean.

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 9:54 am

The student who chooses I went to London last week over I have been to London last week because he's been told that you can't use present perfect with definite time references may be showing he knows how to apply a "rule" but it doesn't necessarily follow that he actually understands what past simple and present perfect actually mean.

I never gave a thought to this, and that's quite natural saying 'you can't use the perfect here because of x and y' and these x and y being only the structure, not the essence of usage, there's pragmatical implication when choosing one to the detriment of the other, I guess I myself have to start paying more attention to it.

That was great lolwhites

BTW the teacher I talked about is granted a PCE. He's good an excellent command of the language but grossily fails to respect its variations, he always keeps saying that 'natives commit a lot of mistakes and non-natives can learn the language without these mistakes.' Needless to say that I fullhearted disagree.

José

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 1:50 pm

What does PCE stand for? Pretty Crap Explanations?

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 2:51 pm

I misspelt it

it's a CPE.

Cramp Peformance in English.

José

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 3:01 pm

Can't Properly Explain?
Confundo os Pobres Estudantes?

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 8:21 pm

I know exactly what CPE stands for because I have just started teaching a CPE course. It stands for Certificate of Proficiency Exam and is the Exam that follows the First Certificate of English (FCE) and Certificate of Advanced English (CAE ). It's basically an exam that is supposed to show that a learner is as good at or better at English than a native speaker. Many native speakers would fail it. However, it concentrates on a very specific set of skills such as register transfer, writing long essays, and answering questions based on a taped monologue and doesn't take much account of non-standard English, coarse slang and archaic language, so in that sense a native speaker would still be more able, for instance, to understand a certain scene from Pulp fiction (I think you know the one.)

I'm not sure what you mean by "granted" a CPE when it is still an exam for learners.

By the way, has anyone seen my post on writing CPE essays?

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 10:13 pm

It still beggars belief that someone with a CPE should think there's a rule that says "only use when or as soon as with Past Simple".

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 10:47 pm

I'm not sure what you mean by "granted" a CPE when it is still an exam for learners.

Well, he has it, he got it, there are few CPEds around here, believe me.

I am yet on my way to the FCE (if I want some respect...)

It's basically an exam that is supposed to show that a learner is as good at or better at English than a native speaker. Many native speakers would fail it. However, it concentrates on a very specific set of skills such as register transfer, writing long essays, and answering questions based on a taped monologue and doesn't take much account of non-standard English, coarse slang and archaic language, so in that sense a native speaker would still be more able, for instance, to understand a certain scene from Pulp fiction (I think you know the one.)

That's something funny, an exam for non-natives where they can prove they can be 'better' than a native speaker, I find such comparasion at least stupid, unless the NNspeaker has been living in the milieu for quite a long time, the use of language is quite different, many rules like 'countable' and 'uncountable' have to be thoroughly analysed, studied and practised to become part of the NNspeaker spectrum, many native speaker would fail it because they simply don't need it.

I recall doing some on-line Portuguese tests and I did some 'mistakes'...

Confundo os Pobres Estudantes?

Sim e como confunde!

José

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 10:54 pm

Proficiency is more or less GCSE grade C standard (the old 'O' level).
It is however an adult exam, so you need more general knowledge and powers of logic than some 16 year olds who get GCSE have, and on the other hand most 16 year old native speakers will have a greater command of informal English than the non-native speaker who passes proficiency.

Though how the guy managed to pass it thinking what he does is beyond me.