{"id":74355,"date":"2020-04-28T15:03:52","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T15:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=74355"},"modified":"2020-04-29T06:28:37","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T06:28:37","slug":"sequence-of-verb-tenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/sequence-of-verb-tenses\/","title":{"rendered":"Sequence Of Verb Tenses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes the time expressed in a main clause is different from the time expressed in a subordinate clause. This can confuse ESL students because they don\u2019t know whether it is appropriate to use different tenses in the different clauses of a sentence. <a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/modal-auxiliary-verbs\/\">Modal verbs<\/a> also convey a sense of time. They can be confusing too. We hope this lesson will be helpful to all students who are worried about using tense sequences correctly.<\/p>\n<h2>Rule 1<\/h2>\n<p>When the main clause is in the\u00a0<b>present\u00a0<\/b>or\u00a0<b>future tense<\/b>, the verb of the subordinate clause can be in any tense. You just need to make sure that the meaning is conveyed accurately. Read the following sentences.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>John\u00a0<b>will ask<\/b>\u00a0what I\u00a0<b>did\u00a0<\/b>with the money. (Main clause \u2013 simple future; subordinate clause \u2013 simple past)<\/li>\n<li>John<b>\u00a0will ask\u00a0<\/b>what I\u00a0<b>am going to do<\/b>\u00a0with the money. (Subordinate clause \u2013 present continuous tense)<\/li>\n<li>John\u00a0<b>will ask<\/b>\u00a0what I\u00a0<b>have done<\/b>\u00a0with the money. (Subordinate clause \u2013 present perfect tense)<\/li>\n<li>John\u00a0<b>will ask<\/b>\u00a0what I\u00a0<b>had done<\/b>\u00a0with the money. (Subordinate clause \u2013 past perfect tense)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In all the sentences given above, the<b>\u00a0main clause<\/b>\u00a0(John will ask) is in the<a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/simple-present-simple-past-and-simple-future-tenses\/\"><b>\u00a0simple future tense<\/b><\/a>. In this case, the subordinate clause can be in any tense. Your choice of tense should depend upon the meaning you want to convey. That\u2019s all.<\/p>\n<p>Now consider another set of examples. In this case, the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/main-clause\/\"><b>main clause<\/b><\/a>\u00a0is in the<b>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/uses-of-the-simple-present-tense\/\">simple present tense<\/a><\/b>. Therefore, the subordinate clause can be in any tense.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He\u00a0<b>says will pay<\/b>\u00a0the dues. (Main clause \u2013 simple present tense; subordinate clause \u2013 simple future tense)<\/li>\n<li>He\u00a0<b>says<\/b>\u00a0that he\u00a0<b>has paid<\/b>\u00a0the dues. (Main clause \u2013 simple present tense; subordinate clause \u2013 present perfect tense)<\/li>\n<li>He\u00a0<b>says<\/b>\u00a0that he\u00a0<b>had paid<\/b>\u00a0the dues. (Main clause \u2013 simple present tense; subordinate clause \u2013 past perfect tense)<\/li>\n<li>He\u00a0<b>says\u00a0<\/b>that he<b>\u00a0is going<\/b>\u00a0to pay the dues. (Main clause \u2013 simple present tense; subordinate clause \u2013 present continuous tense)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Rule 2<\/h2>\n<p>When the main clause is in the\u00a0<b>past<\/b>\u00a0or\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/the-past-perfect-tense-overview\/\"><b>past perfect tense<\/b><\/a>, the subordinate clause must be in the past or past perfect tense.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He\u00a0<b>said<\/b>\u00a0that he\u00a0<b>wanted\u00a0<\/b>to go. (NOT He said that he wants to go.) (Here the main clause (He said) is in the simple past tense and hence the subordinate clause, too, should be in the past tense.)<\/li>\n<li>She<b>\u00a0said\u00a0<\/b>that she<b>\u00a0had paid<\/b>\u00a0the dues. (NOT She said that she has paid the dues.)<\/li>\n<li>They<b>\u00a0asked\u00a0<\/b>me where I<b>\u00a0was going<\/b>. (NOT They asked me where I am going.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are some exceptions to this rule. When the\u00a0<b>subordinate clause<\/b>\u00a0expresses a general truth, it can in the\u00a0<b>present tense<\/b>\u00a0even when the main clause is in the\u00a0<b>past tense<\/b>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The teacher<b>\u00a0said\u00a0<\/b>that the earth\u00a0<b>moved\u00a0<\/b>around the sun. OR The teacher\u00a0<b>said<\/b>\u00a0that the earth\u00a0<b>moves\u00a0<\/b>around the sun.<\/li>\n<li>She\u00a0<b>said<\/b>\u00a0that she<b>\u00a0had<\/b>\u00a0cancer. OR She\u00a0<b>said<\/b>\u00a0that she\u00a0<b>has<\/b>\u00a0cancer. (The second sentence is possible as long as the fact that she has cancer is true.)<\/li>\n<li>Copernicus\u00a0<b>proved\u00a0<\/b>that the sun\u00a0<b>was<\/b>\u00a0the centre of the universe. OR Copernicus\u00a0<b>proved<\/b>\u00a0that the sun\u00a0<b>is<\/b>\u00a0the centre of the universe.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes the time expressed in a main clause is different from the time expressed in a subordinate clause. This can confuse ESL students because they don\u2019t know whether it is appropriate to use different&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[1390,2825],"class_list":["post-74355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-sequence-of-tenses","tag-tenses-in-subordinate-clauses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74355"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74358,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74355\/revisions\/74358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}