Hernandez
Trump spoke/would speak Hi, there I am trying to translate a text and I would like to know if I should use "would", the simple past or even the past progressive in this sentence: "As early as in 2014, Trump would already speak out against a few immigration policies in a confrontational tone" or "As early as in 2014, Trump already spoke out against a few immigration policies in a confrontational tone"? Thank you
Nov 16, 2019 10:32 PM
Answers · 15
1
Hi Hernandez, Here is a quote from Raymond Murphy’s English Grammar in Use: “You can also use ‘would’ to talk about things that happened regularly in the past.” (Unit 36) I looked this up to check my native speaker’s intuition that yes, ‘would’ sounds natural for the sense that Trump repeatedly/habitually did this during that period; the simple past makes sense and is used but doesn’t give that sense of regular, repeated action. What doesn’t seem necessary to me is “already”, because you have the adverb phrase at the start of the sentence telling us about time.
November 16, 2019
I would use: "T. was already speaking out against..." or "T. had already spoken out against..."
November 16, 2019
Trump already spoke out...................
November 16, 2019
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