tailieunhanh - A complete English language course part 17

Vicki answers with I don't think so, not because she isn't sure but because this is a more indirect way of saying No - it would sound rather short just to say 'No'. Let's look at another example of two people being introduced to each other. | 144 3 Did she open the window 4 Terry didn t wash the car. 5 Henry walked to college today. 6 Suzie cleaned her teeth. - 7 The others arrived late. 8 Sandra played the piano. Language point 55 - more about the past simple In Dialogue 3 both past simple and present perfect tenses are used - it s important in English to use them correctly and to understand the differences they are both past tenses but they are not interchangeable The bank employee says One of our customers has just handed a passport in He uses the present perfect because it happened a very short time ago - a few minutes perhaps. But then he asks When exactly did you lose your passport He uses the past simple here because he s talking about an event that happened further back in the past - earlier that day. Let s look at these two sentences using go a Anne s gone to the bank present perfect b Anne went to the bank yesterday past simple Sentence a means that Anne was here a short while ago but she isn t here now. Sentence b simply states what happened yesterday. Another way of looking at this difference is to imagine that we are in a room where Anne works. If someone comes in and asks for Anne then we can only say a if Anne isn t in the room because she s gone but we could say b even if Anne is in the room with us because the past simple describes a completed action in the past with no reference to the present. 145 It is sometimes difficult for students of English to decide whether to use the present perfect or the past simple when talking about the past - but here are two helpful rules 1 if something has happened a very short time ago present PERFECT 2 if there is a word that indicates when something happened past SIMPLE So Is Kath here - She s gone out to get a coffee - she ll be back in a minute 1 - She went out half an hour ago - I don t know where she is 2 Back in Dialogue 2 Liz makes a statement and says You did take all your stuff out of your bag She could have said You took all your stuff out .