English grammar: Past Tense

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Kristian

Which sentence describes that one action happened after another?

When she came in the classroom, we were writing it

When she came in the classroom, we wrote it.

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٥ يناير ٢٠٢٣ ١٥:٠٥

التصحيحات · 8

English grammar: Past Tense Being a native speaker does not necessarily mean that you lack some knowledge of your language. Secondly, any aggressive approach (about something that you are not even sure of) is not tolerable. The quiz represents a simple example of dependent and independent clauses being separated by a comma while giving insight into the relationship between tenses. It may be that the independent clause has a priority, in this case, to make it sound better but you have not listed any meaningful grammatical points against the sentence that starts with a dependent marker and separates itself with a comma. (When she finished school, she got a job as a main assistant. She got a job as a main assistant when she finished school.) If you are preparing a critical comment then do it right. You can not just think that "when" can not be used for subsequent actions in past tense. Of course, the quizzes are made to be discussed but please support your statements properly.

٧ يناير ٢٠٢٣

English grammar: Past Tense

I think they both sort of make sense, though I agree they sound a bit awkward. Using “when” for subsequent actions (in past tense), though, is awkward to the point that I think it’s probably not quite right. Replacing “when” in the second sentence with “once” or “after”, it would still sound a little contrived, but (to me, at least) it would be perfectly correct. In the first case, for things happening at once, “when” seems fine but “while” would sound better.

٦ يناير ٢٠٢٣

English grammar: Past Tense

Both of those sentences are awkward to my ear as a native English speaker. I would write them as: 1. We were writing it when she came into the classroom. (contemporaneous actions in the past) 2. We wrote it after she came into the classroom. (Subsequent actions in the past).

٦ يناير ٢٠٢٣

These don't make a lot of sense for a native English speaker. We understand what the sentences mean, but the structures are so awkward that the sentences pose more questions in the reader's mind than declarative sentences should. See Thorn Michaels' alternatives below, which are the correct alternatives. Your commas don't help much at all.

٦ يناير ٢٠٢٣

English grammar: Past Tense

I understand - however written that way the sentence construction is unnatural in English. The second one to the point of not being comprehensible. 🤷🏻‍♀️

٦ يناير ٢٠٢٣

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