Re: "He "says" that he is free now." Is this sentence correct?
- From: Jim Karatassos <jim.karatassos@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:12:37 -0700 (PDT)
On Jun 24, 9:29 am, datere <ee123456...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My grammar book tells me that "present tense" usually cannot be used
to represent "one-time action happens in the present time". For
example, "He sleeps in bed" doesn't mean that he is sleeping in bed
right now (present action).
But I saw these sentences:
He *says that he is busy now.
He *says that he will be busy tomorrow.
He *says that he has been busy recently.
He *says that he was busy yesterday.
Those sentences are examples from one of my grammar books. They are
used to explain "the sequence of tenses". I think the verb "says" is
somewhat strange here. If they are correct in using present tense,
what do those sentences mean? Do they mean that "he is saying..." or
other? My concept is that present tense is used to refer to "present
states", not "present actions". So I'm very confused with this case.
Could you please tell me why they use present tense here? Thank you
very much!!
The topic you need work on is REPORTED SPEECH, occasionally referred
to as INDIRECT SPEECH. Oh boy.
Per my other post today, datere, throw away whatever ESL grammar
practice and/or reference book you're using and get one that will
actually help you. Obviously, no one has taken the time to really go
through the tenses in English with you, an extremely common problem in
adult ESL education. I suggest that you beg, borrow, or steal Raymond
Murphy's _English Grammar in Use_, 3rd edition. Go through the first
25 units of it. Until you feel that you're on solid ground when
dealing with the singular, odd tense structure of English, you will
continue to have problems with tenses, which will hold you back in
other aspects of language learning.
What usually happens is that most teachers who don't have a lot of
experience with adults tend to make the bad judgment to skip over
tense structures in their adult courses and materials, because young
adults who have been learning English for years feel comfortable with
them. Too many ESL newbies don't understand the psychological barriers
to learning the language, or to use the technical term for it,
filters, that not having a firm grasp of English tenses instill in
adult ESL learners.
After you get done with tense structure, do the Reported Speech Units,
47-48, in EGU. That will answer about half of your question.
But looking at this specific question and the way you phrase your
questions, there's also a chance that you're trying to work through a
grammar book that is well above your current general English
proficiency, another common problem in ESL adult learners, especially
highly-motivated students trying to learn English alone. Is that the
case here?
.
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