Today is NOT a good day
I'm writing to you because, first of all, I need to practice my English and then because tomorrow I will have an English test at University about grammar but as you can see, I'm not really prepared!
I don't really know why it's too difficult for me to understand the grammar rules.
I have no problem with listening or reading but when I have to write or translate an Italian text into English, my mind freaks out!
I'm begging you, native speaker, come here and help me with this huge overwhelming problem.
I have just failed once, I don't want to be beaten again!
I'm looking forward to passing it!
does someone have any suggestions for me? my mind messes up with passive for example:
The letters are sent or the letters have been sent?
The President was elected or the President had been elected?
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Corrections · 3
1
Today Is Not A Good Day
I'm writing to you because, first of all, I need to practice my English, an secondly, because tomorrow I will have an English test at university about grammar, but as you can see, I'm not really prepared! I don't really know why it's so difficult for me to understand the grammar rules. I have no problem with listening or reading, but when I have to write or translate Italian text into English, my mind freaks out! I'm begging you, native speakers, come here, and help me with this huge, overwhelming problem. I have just failed once, and I don't want to be beaten again! I'm looking forward to passing it!
Does anyone have any suggestions for me? My mind messes up with passive, for example:
The letters are sent or the letters have been sent?
The President was elected or the President had been elected?
Overall Andrea, I think you wrote this very well! I did notice a few issues with commas, and capitalization, but like I said, I think you wrote this very well. Don't get down my friend, English grammar takes awhile to learn and become good at recognizing, you'll get there! In your examples, "The letters have been sent." and "The President was elected." would be the correct choices. If you have any questions, please let me know, and if you would like help to practice and improve your English, I'd be happy to help you, just let me know!
0
Hello Andrea,
First of all, I'd like to say that I find your grammar quite decent!
As to your questions, whichever tense should be used depends on the situation.
If someone asks you to help deliver letters, and you report back to him/her after you have done so, you may say "the letters have been sent".
"have been [past tense]" is the present perfect tense, which means the action was done some time in the past, but the exact time it was performed is unimportant.
"The President was elected on 1st January."
"The President had been elected before the book was published."
The first sentence is in the simple past tense, used when an event occurred at a specific time in the past.
The second sentence (had been [past tense]) is in the past perfect tense, used when one event occurred before another, while BOTH events occurred in the past.
0
Not a native speaker, but I've done enough studying to help you with this.
1st: the letters have been sent is the correct choice. You sent them already in the past. If you're doing the action currently (present continuous) you need to write "The letters are being sent)
2nd: Both are correct. 1st applies to regular talk (this morning etc.), while the second uses past perfect (which states that this action happened prior to another action that took place)
Example of 2nd example 2nd sentence would be The President had been elected even before the voting was finished.
I'd recommend you brush up on tenses and how their passives look.
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