[etni] Fwd: re: Grammar question
- From: ETNI list <etni.list@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Etni <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 18:20:31 +0200
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bari Nirenberg <bnirenberg@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Grammar question
Those aren't simultaneous actions. "She learned them" means that she
didn't know them and now she does -- there's no progressive action
implied here. Also, when there are two verbs in a sentence in the
past progressive, neither is the result of the other -- they're two
completely separate things. In this case, learning physics and
chemistry was the result of studying for the competition, it wasn't
something that she did simultaneous to studying for the competition.
Bari
Tal wrote:
> I am also a native speaker. I found that there are many times, especially
> when teaching the past progressive, that the rules and my gut feeling (by
> ear) don't always match. There are also times when the rules don't always
> seem to match the answers.
> I just came across an example from New Practice your grammar for the 9th
> grade (page 64). The sentence is: "Yael, who is only 15 years old, had never
> studied physics or chemistry at school. She (learns / learned / was learning)
> these subjects while she (studies / studied / was studying) for the
> competition". The answer in the answer booklet is learned, and was learning.
> Can someone please tell me why the answer is "learned?" According to the
> rules, we explain to them that if there are 2 long actions happening
> simultaneously, then they are both in the past progressive. Here she did
> study them the whole time she was studying for the competition.
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