Among the banes of my existence is an inability to figure out whether to use the perfect or the imperfect when using a past-tense verb describing a state (e.g. "I understood she would come," "I knew that he was wrong," etc.). Obviously there are times when the choice is clear (e.g. "I read the letter, at which point I understood she would come"), but I would say they're in the minority, and usually when I'm writing or speaking I end up just picking one in those cases and hoping for the best.
I was delighted today to find this post, by @Godmy, offering a rule of thumb:
THREAD: english-past-tenses-vs-latin-perfect-imperfect-pluperfect-in-examples
"The only problem is with the number 5 and 7 in this table, where past simple is translated sometimes as imperfect and sometimes as perfect. So the short advice is (for the long advice see the table): past simple (I went..) means imperfect only in those instances where it is the same in the given clause as present simple (I go...), but just seen from the past viewpoint.
"So, if you can convert the English past simple to present simple and not changing the overall meaning of the clause (i.e. a result) but changing just the time of the action, then that serves as a test whether it should be translated as an imperfect or not."
I love the idea of this, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to apply it. Godmy (or others), would you mind giving a few examples?
Thanks so much.
I was delighted today to find this post, by @Godmy, offering a rule of thumb:
THREAD: english-past-tenses-vs-latin-perfect-imperfect-pluperfect-in-examples
"The only problem is with the number 5 and 7 in this table, where past simple is translated sometimes as imperfect and sometimes as perfect. So the short advice is (for the long advice see the table): past simple (I went..) means imperfect only in those instances where it is the same in the given clause as present simple (I go...), but just seen from the past viewpoint.
"So, if you can convert the English past simple to present simple and not changing the overall meaning of the clause (i.e. a result) but changing just the time of the action, then that serves as a test whether it should be translated as an imperfect or not."
I love the idea of this, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to apply it. Godmy (or others), would you mind giving a few examples?
Thanks so much.