Question

Aktualisiert am 15 Aug 2018

fuxi

12 Feb 2014

Japanisch

Englisch (US)

Frage über Englisch (US)

About the past progressive and present progressive tense.
Which is more natural between the following two sentences?

5

I had always wanted to go to America, and that dream finally came true two years ago.
1

I have always wanted to go to America, and that dream finally came true two years ago.

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Antworten

kevina

12 Feb 2014

Englisch (US)

Antwort I had always wanted to go to America, and that dream finally came true two years ago.

It would be more natural (US English) to say "I had always wanted..." without the contraction.

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fuxi

12 Feb 2014

Japanisch

Thanks a lot:)

inflorescence

12 Feb 2014

Englisch (US)

Antwort I had always wanted to go to America, and that dream finally came true two years ago.

"Have always" implies that your deam still hasn't come true. It sounds like you are speaking about something is <ongoing right now>, instead of speaking about something that was <ongoing in the past>.

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fuxi

12 Feb 2014

Japanisch

Thanks for the explanation. The past perfect tense could give negative impressions like, once you visited the US, you lost all interest in it. So I was wondering how to make a sentence grammatically correct, while giving the readers the impressions that, even after visiting the US, I still remained interested in the US. Do you know how to do so? I'd be glad if you'd teach me.

naerylan

12 Feb 2014

Englisch (US)

Antwort I had always wanted to go to America, and that dream finally came true two years ago.

Specifically the reason past progressive sounds more correct here is because the second clause, "the dream came true" is also something that happened in the past. When the tense doesn't match it can be slightly confusing about when each event started. The other sentence could still work if you changed the last part to say something like "...and though my dream has come true, I still want to go there again"

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fuxi

13 Feb 2014

Japanisch

Thanks. That's what I really wanted to know.

inflorescence

14 Feb 2014

Englisch (US)

Antwort I had always wanted to go to America, and that dream finally came true two years ago.

Your sentence achieves that perfectly by saying, "...finally came true." After the sentence, the reader gets the impression that you are happy.

You could say in your next sentence, "Now that I've gone, I think it's a terrible place," but if you just stop at the first sentence, you seem not to regret it.

I think maybe the more natural way to express regret is to use the past tense. "I used to dream about going to America, until I went two years ago." That sounds a lot more like you don't dream about America anymore.

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fuxi

14 Feb 2014

Japanisch

Thinking about the nuances of the following sentences:
I hoped he would come to the party.
I had hoped he would come to the party.

the past perfect tense seems to give a negative impression without context, as if the he didn't actually come.
Am I right about this? Is what you mean that, depending on the context, the past perfect could have a positive or negative nuance?
Thank you very much.