More questions about English tense usage

[LarryLatham]

Shun Tang does not seem to be asking for help, Sally. If you read a number of his posts in this and other threads, you begin to feel that he is looking for an assembly in which to postulate and then justify his (rather...unorthodox, I'm afraid) views on English grammar with obfuscation. He engages not in scholarly argument, but in apologetics. I, for one, just don't have the energy anymore to run around after him, trying to see the merit in his posts. That is too bad, and probably is a mark of my fallibility as a teacher. I don't feel good about it. But there are other students and non-native speakers who post here, genuinely looking for help, and they are warmly received with sincere, thoughtful replies from many knowledgeable participants. Shun Tang, I'm sorry to have to say, is not among them.

Larry Latham

[shuntang]

If Shun Tang is not real he has a twin here who asks me the same questions.

I beg your pardon, but I am too old here to count whether I have asked anyone about something. Of course I am real. Have I denied anything here before?

Shun Tang

[Sally Olsen]

I find this fascinating Shun Tang.

I am too old - does this mean you have been on line for a long time in this thread or does it mean, that like me, you are old in years?

whether I have asked about something - does this mean that you are not worried about Hong Kong and don't want to leave to go to Australia? I was worried about you as it seemed to be an appeal for help.

Have I denied anything here before? - What does this mean? Are you trying to say that you are trying your hardest to write in English and make people understand you? Are you really interested in communicating with people in English? Do you read over carefully things that people post? Do you really believe that you understand them?

I have a student exactly like you and sometimes he just argues because he learned that English people argue a lot. He thought it would make him popular. It is style that is frustrating for me as a teacher because I can't understand what he says and he doesn't seem to want to understand. I am trying to teach him the rules of debate and that does seem to help some. I also record what he says and make him listen and sometimes he laughs because he can't understand what he says either.

Could you go back over your posts and explain them more clearly to me? I have recorded this whole thread and will show it to my student and we will see if he understands your arguments and send you comments personally if you would like.

I am trying to understand this area just as much as you are.
[/quote]

[Duncan Powrie]

(I like the "experiential" use of Present perfect aspect a lot, perhaps 'cos I studied some Chinese, which has a clear experiential suffix "-guo" - see the web page that Andrew quoted recently on the "English aspects" thread for a few examples!)

Don't let any Chinese trick you. He has been first fooled by other English users. We Chinese don't have tenses, but as you English users all have wrongly explained tenses on one-sentence basis, so the Chinese author you mentioned also has to stay on the same wrong basis. On one-sentence basis, we Chinese therefore have to use time adverbials, like LE or GUO, to indicate the past. Most important, LE and GUO are not suffix, but time adverbials, meaning ALREADY. Forget the hyphen in "-guo". In any Chinese newspaper, for example, as we know what happened yesterday shall be now regarded as past, we seldom use time adverbials to help express the time. Actually, English tenses shall be explained the same way: by the whole paragraph. If you know how LE and GUO look like in Chinese, try to check any Chinese newspaper: there is no LE and GUO. The frequency we use LE and GUO is same as you use ALREADY. Using too much of it in a piece of message will make it look like childish.

Above, please check how many times you all have used ALREADY before my message: None. That is the same way we use LE and GUO. But this doesn't mean we don't have ALREADY, LE, or GUO at all.

As I have promised, on one-sentence basis, what you say to Present Perfect can be said word for word again to either Simple Past or Simple Present. Both Simple Past and Present Perfect are "experiential":

Ex: I did/have done my homework on the bus before But now Daddy drives me to school in the Merc, I've got time to do it at home.

===========
One-country-two-system has been forcefully broken today by China mainland. Hong Kong has no democracy anymore. We shall have a protest match this Sunday. Fear and hatred hovers over me. If anyone can get me to Australia for long, please do. Personally, I have no any qualification, but I have devoted my whole life in studying English tenses.

Shun Tang

I'm sorry to be replying so late to your posting here, Shun Tang, but sometimes I don't spot 'em or have much to say about 'em until quite a while has passed.

I don't believe that I have been "tricked" by the Chinese learning materials that I have used up to now, and in them, I have never heard GUO or LE referred to as adverbs. The writers of these materials are not trying to impose "Latinate" grammatical categories (e.g. verb inflection)upon Chinese, but rather seem to be trying to point out areas where conceptualization and function of (obviously dissimilar) forms overlap to a pedagogically useful (if not linguistically-useful, that is, in the study of language(s) in general) extent.

You are probably right about the frequency of occurence of GUO and LE in newspaper articles, but the majority of the examples I post surely cannot be taken to be meaning to represent written English, and certainly not newspaperEnglish (there is no mention of a newspaper context in any of the previous posts in this thread, apart from yours).

Once again, this seems to be an example of you setting out your soapbox and lecturing without invitation.

There, now my name is back at the top of the postings, and I won't have to click decades back to find any references to my most marvellous myself.

[shuntang]

Duncan,

You wrote before:

Couldn't the rich kid also say, "I've done homework on the bus before (too i.e. you have, and I have too), but now Daddy..." (I like the "experiential" use of Present perfect aspect a lot, perhaps 'cos I studied some Chinese, which has a clear experiential suffix "-guo" - see the web page that Andrew quoted recently on the "English aspects" thread for a few examples!)

And now you claimed:

I don't believe that I have been "tricked" by the Chinese learning materials that I have used up to now, and in them, I have never heard GUO or LE referred to as adverbs.

I want to explain, every Chinese character is fixed and itself has no suffix. GUO and LE are not suffixes, as they have to separate from the verb, sometimes far from the verb. For example, LE can be put at the end of a sentence. Does it look like a suffix to the verb?

On the other hand, in English you cannot write “goes” as “go es”, let alone “go to school es”. We call “-es” as suffix, which doesn’t come off from its host.

Shun

[Duncan Powrie]

Once again, Shun, you are pointing things out to me that I already know or are obvious, which is a little presumptuous if not condescending (when you say, "I want to explain, every Chinese character is fixed and itself has no suffix. GUO and LE are not suffixes, as they have to separate from the verb, sometimes far from the verb. For example, LE can be put at the end of a sentence. Does it look like a suffix to the verb?").

More to the point, the verb-suffix LE and the sentence-final LE DO seem to be distinguished/distinguishable in grammars (written in English) of Chinese, which perhaps you should read at least as "well" as I have. So, I am afraid that LE IS referred to as a suffix at least some of the time (when it is a suffix, unsurprisingly!) by quite a few writers (and of course, they do not confine themselves simply to LE's positions in the sentence, but also its function=meaning/use). It may well be possible to view it as an adverb, but as I said, I have not seen it referred to as such, and there are better examples of adverbs to be had, surely (or, indeed, "moveable adverbs").

I am not claiming to be an expert of Chinese, especially since I am no longer studying it (at least, not with any consistency anymore), but I do try to (continue to) use what seem to be accepted terms (at least insofar as I can claim to have understood or can vaguely remember them), and I am sure I would still be able (more or less at a glance) to distinguish verb-suffix LE from sentence-final LE (unless the verb+suffix happened to come at the end of the sentence, which I seem to recall is not really allowed in Chinese, as such a "sentence" would sound incomplete - now THERE'S something that you could tell me more about!!) - often the two work in tandem, don't they! On another thread, you were trying to open up a debate about what EFL means, and here you are seemingly ignorant of basic grammatical parlance regarding your own native language!

But a detailed discussion of Chinese would perhaps best be saved for another thread (and I'd also appreciate a chance to get to read up on things again, IF I have the time)!

[shuntang]

You are probably right about the frequency of occurence of GUO and LE in newspaper articles, but the majority of the examples I post surely cannot be taken to be meaning to represent written English, and certainly not newspaper English (there is no mention of a newspaper context in any of the previous posts in this thread, apart from yours).

Of course I am right.

Once again, Shun, you are pointing things out to me that I already know or are obvious, which is a little presumptuous if not condescending (when you say, "I want to explain, every Chinese character is fixed and itself has no suffix. GUO and LE are not suffixes, as they have to separate from the verb, sometimes far from the verb. For example, LE can be put at the end of a sentence. Does it look like a suffix to the verb?").

It is as objective as can be. Did I sound presumptuous if not condescending here? I am afraid I have to borrow a phrase from a person here: Take it or leave it. I will ALSO stop watching this thread.

Shun Tang

[Duncan Powrie]

You are, as ever, welcome to not take whatever points are made to you, Shun! I was simply trying to say that your choice of words and phrasing (indeed, your whole approach to communicating with people on these threads) leaves a lot to be desired, and your ignorance of basic (and widely accepted/acceptable) terms is pretty inexcusable (that is, when I initially said Chinese has a verbal suffix GUO, and indeed LE, I did not expect to be totally contradicted).

I don't think that many people will be bothered to continue to take what you have to say at all seriously after they (have) read our above little "exchange"!

[revel]

Hey everyone!

The example about the homework is out of context in terms of a "universe of discourse" but is a nice contextual sentence on its own. How about these versions?

I did my homework. (I finished it before speaking to you.)
I used to do my homework. (....but now I've given up that good habit.)
I've done my homework. (....and it is now ready to be given to the teacher.)
I'm doing my homework. (....so don't bother me right now.)
I do my homework. (....every time I have homework to do!)
I was doing my homework. (....when Mary called.)
I should have done my homework. (....but I went to the movies instead.)
I must have been doing my homework. (....if that's what you say, I myself am not all that sure of it....)

I won't go on. The "misuses" of any verb tense or mode may just serve the speaker in the moment or he/she might have begun one sentence and finished with another, something that is not unusual in spoken language. And the receptor would just as likely either correct the "misuse" in his/her mind or say "what?" if there were confusion due to the poorly presented verb. So, I stick to the simple clear explanations illustrated not only by the above examples but also by the explanations offered here, excepting the convoluted ones offered by our Chinese contributor. I suspect he is suffering some kind of psycological reality construct interference, it might be difficult to truly grasp time if one's language does not represent it as ours does. Just a thought. Spanish people for example have a bit of trouble accepting that the present perfect is only a present in ESL and not very useful for talking about a recent past as they can use their similar construction in their language. Thought processes differ.

peace,
revel.

[Duncan Powrie]

Hiya Revel, thanks for posting, although I must admit I have not bothered (re)thinking too much about the distinctions in the examples you've offered. I just take exception to people lecturing me (and everyone else who bothers to visit this site) about how we should not, it seems, be using useful and widely-accepted terminology, like it bore no relation to what it is attempting to (presumably, fairly accurately) describe!

[revel]

Hey all!

I agree, Duncan, there is no reason not to use words or terms to group concepts with students. Especially when those terms help get down to the nitty-gritty of what a native feels or understands when using language.

For example, this "remoteness" that at least one poster seems to disunderstand (using "dis-" as a prefix meaning voluntary negation, as opposed to "mis-"....). I'm personally glad to have discovered this word in these threads on time. Naturally, since it exists, I have been explaining remoteness for years when talking about times and modes in the English verb. However, that one word, remote, as a measuring device, like inches, might just help me make my explanations more concise.

The remoteness concept also seems to simplify, something absolutely necessary in the language classroom. Mr Tang's long and unfounded arguements leave my head reeling and I can only imagine the confusion he would cause in my classroom with my students. The fact is, they are all too easily confused and don't need nit-picking (wow, two insect metaphores in the same posting, based on the same bug!) and exceptional examples presented. I suppose that if any of these "exceptions" came up in class we would have to explain them, but the focus, at least in my classes, is on the norm. The students prove their understanding of the norm when they begin to recognize that which does not fit into the norm themselves. Thus explaining non-norm before norm is assimilated is not as productive, not an economic use of class time. I don't worry about teaching all the variations, those will come up in their own good time.

peace,
revel.

[Duncan Powrie]

I am afraid I have to borrow a phrase from a person here: Take it or leave it. I will ALSO stop watching this thread.

Shun Tang

Oh, I forgot to add, Shunny, that I will not be "taking" it from you, at least not as far as Chinese is concerned (and as far as English goes, there is NO WAY I would EVER have considered taking on board your recommendations, or advising any student of mine learning English to pay the slightest attention to anything you've ever said on this site). 'Nuff said.

[Duncan Powrie]

Thanks for your PM about the Chinese, wjserson! Did you get my reply? Please confirm here that you did...if not, maybe you can tell me how to send them, or PM me again with an email addy or something! Thanks!

[wjserson]

well received, DP.

[wjserson]

By the way, Shun, although I'm flattered that I might have taught you a new phrase, please do not overuse what you learned from me , or use it in the wrong context : you asked my opinion about something and I gave it. You decided to argue that my opinion was wrong so I stated "It's my opinion, take it or leave it" It means that I don't care what you think about my opinon.

If you're going to tell everybody to do the same, but under the wrong context (ie. "You're wrong, take it or leave it"), your basically giving your response much more merit than your statement deserves. Only a person with an ego such as, say Stephen Jones, would do something like that. (Just a joke SJ)