domi paris
Past tenses in a narration At the psychotherapist's. Patient : "You could hardly have recognized the guy when he came back after his motorbike accident. Before, he was a handsome dark-eyed guy, pretty much cocky and assertive though. He somewhat believed himself to be the center of the universe, encouraged by his doting father who would pander to his every whim. But when he came back, the contrast between his looks and his ways was nearly ludicrous. He had not changed his ways, why should he have? His father had bought him a motor boat of course and the guy would always be boasting about his bloody motor boat... But whenever he walked, my gosh, when he walked, he looked sooooo much like a dislocated puppet... You would feel like laughing your head off but hey you couldn't, you see, because the accident had been so ghastly. The first doctors he had seen had wanted to amputate both his legs. Finally he had kept his legs but how difficult it was to keep a straight face when you saw him ... crawling, sort of..." Psychotherapist : "mmmmmmm...." Patient : "Er, well, in short, my wife's just told me that she had been very much in love with the guy at one point, which I had always known. No surprise here. She told that even if she thought that he was a jerk, still she was very attracted to him, couldn't help it. That is, before the accident. After his "come-back", she lost at once all interest in the guy. At that time, it came as a big shock to her that she would have grown so quickly indifferent to him. She was thinking of herself as a shallow and spineless creature. Now, I do wonder though... If the guy had not had his accident, if she had not felt so guilty about her turning cold to the poooooor chap, would she even have so much as talked to me, the shy, balding guy in the background?" Psychotherapist : "This is the end of today's session."
Jul 5, 2015 8:05 PM
Corrections · 6

The narratives you write are so creative! I'll add some stylistic suggestions to make the narrative more idiomatic. Your use of past tenses are all correct in the most formal sense, but they don't always correspond to normal usage. We use the simple past as a bit of a garbage bag in conversation, sucking up what logically might belong to the imperfect or the pluperfect, as you see in my suggestions below.


Also, informal usage tends not to avoid the object + infinitive construction, but tends to use a "that..." clause.

 

Past tenses in a narration

At the psychotherapist's.

Patient : "You could/would [more idiomatic, though could is possible] hardly have recognized the guy when he came back after his motorbike accident. Before, he was a handsome and dark-eyed guy-- pretty much cocky and assertive, though. He somewhat somehow believed himself to be [He somehow thought he was] the center of the universe, encouraged by his doting father, who would pander to his every whim. But when he came back, the contrast between his looks and his ways the way he acted was nearly ludicrous. He had not changed his ways, why should he have? His father had bought him a motor boat, of course, and the guy would always be boasting about his bloody motor boat... But whenever he walked, my gosh, when he walked, he looked sooooo much like a dislocated puppet... You would feel like laughing your head off but, hey, you couldn't, you see, because the accident had been so ghastly. The first doctors he had seen/saw [had] wanted to amputate both his legs. Finally, he had kept his legs but how difficult it was to keep a straight face when you saw him ... crawling, sort of..."
Psychotherapist : "mmmmmmm...."
Patient : "Er, well, in short, my wife's just told me that she had been very much in love with the guy at one point, which I had always known. No surprise here.
She told that even if she thought [that] he was a jerk, still she was very attracted to him, couldn't help it. That is, before the accident. After his "come-back", she lost at once lost all interest in the guy. At that time, it came as a big shock to her that she would have grown so quickly indifferent to him [a little formal for the tone of the rest of the narrative: Perhaps " ... that she didn't much like him any more."]. She was thinking of herself as thought she was a shallow and spineless creature.
Now, I do wonder though... If the guy had not had his accident, if she had not felt so guilty about her turning cold to the poooooor chap, would she even have so much as talked to me, the shy, balding guy in the background?"
Psychotherapist : "This is the end of today's session."

July 8, 2015

Past tenses in a narration

At the psychotherapist's.

Patient : "You would hardly have recognized the guy when he came back after his motorbike accident. Before, he was a handsome dark-eyed guy, pretty much cocky but assertive though. He somewhat believed himself to be the center of the universe, encouraged by his doting father who would pander to his every whim. But when he came back, the contrast between his looks and his ways was nearly ludicrous. He had not changed his ways, why should he have? His father had bought him a motor boat of course and the guy would always be boasting about his bloody motor boat... But whenever he walked, my gosh, when he walked, he looked sooooo much like a dislocated puppet... You would feel like laughing your head off but hey you couldn't, you see, because the accident had been so ghastly. The first doctors he had seen had wanted to amputate both his legs. Finally he had kept his legs but how difficult it was to keep a straight face when you saw him ... crawling, sort of..."
Psychotherapist : "mmmmmmm...."
Patient : "Er, well, in short, my wife's just told me that she had been very much in love with the guy at one point, which I had always known. No surprise here.
She told that even if she thought that he was a jerk, still she was very attracted to him, couldn't help it. That is, before the accident. After his "come-back", she lost at once all interest in the guy. At that time, it came as a big shock to her that she would have grown so quickly indifferent to him. She was thinking of herself as a shallow and spineless creature.
Now, I do wonder though... If the guy had not had his accident, if she had not felt so guilty about her turning cold to the poooooor chap, would she even have so much as talked to me, the shy, balding guy in the background?"
Psychotherapist : "This is the end of today's session."

 

Your English is very good! There were almost no errors in the text.

July 7, 2015
anyone :)?
July 6, 2015
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