Dear Sir
I hadn't cried / I did not cry
Which one is correct?
Dear Sir
I hadn't cried / I did not cry
Which one is correct?
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Hi, G.M,
@Former Member posted:Dear Sir
I hadn't cried / I did not cry
Which one is correct?
Further context is needed here.
About his father death and he went to play
“Not going to a match was not an option I ever had or I couldn’t resist that option in my mind. So, I am going to go and he said okay, if that’s your decision, go ahead. So I left the house, I hadn’t cried at all. “
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...t_radio=1&t=103s
time : 4.41
My question is that why he did not use : I did not cry
@Former Member posted:About his father death and he went to play
“Not going to a match was not an option I ever had or I couldn’t resist that option in my mind. So, I am going to go and he said okay, if that’s your decision, go ahead. So I left the house, I hadn’t cried at all. “
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...t_radio=1&t=103s
time : 4.41
You wrote it wrongly. It should be written like this: "I left the house. I hadn't cried at all." Well, the main incident here is his father's death. When his father died, he couldn't cry and, strangely, he decided to have a game on that same day. 'Before leaving his home and going to the stadium, he hadn't cried at all.' The usage of the past perfect to refer to a prior action (incident) is very natural.
Could explain in detail?
@Former Member posted:Could explain in detail?
The past perfect is mainly used to refer to what happened first in the past. Here, that player decided to leave home and go to the stadium (second action), but there is something strange happened before that. He hadn't cried for his father's death (first action).
- Before he left home, he hadn't cried for his father's death. (But, later, that happened in the changing room).
Then, in what occasion, will we use "did+verb 1st form?
@Former Member posted:Then, in what occasion, will we use "did+verb 1st form?
Hi, Grammar Man—I agree with the answers Ahmed_btm has given you here. If the speaker had said "So I left the house. I didn't cry at all.," the implication would be that the speaker didn't cry while leaving the house or right after leaving the house. But the desired meaning is that he didn't cry before leaving the house. That is why the past perfect is used: to indicate the past in the past.
It means when we we use "had not" there is a chance he might have cried later but when we use "did not" there is no chance he cried in the future as well. Am I right?
@Former Member posted:It means when we we use "had not" there is a chance he might have cried later but when we use "did not" there is no chance he cried in the future as well. Am I right?
No, Grammar Man. The point is that, when the past perfect is used, there is already a past time in the grammatical context. Here that past time is the time of "I left the house."
Relative to that past time, the past perfect locates the situation of its verb phrase further back in the past. Thus, "I hadn't cried at all" means that there was no crying on the speaker's part before the speaker left the house.
If the past perfect is not used ("I left the house. I didn't cry at all."), we simply have a sequence of two past tenses, and the second one will be understood as in the immediate future relative to the first.
Dear Sir
If that is the case, would you mind checking this article given below link. Is it correct?
@Former Member posted:If that is the case, would you mind checking this article given below link. Is it correct?
What is it that you don't understand in my explanation, Grammar Man? I don't have time to read the article to which you have linked, which is written by someone who doesn't speak English very well. Do you have a grammar book?
I don't have grammar book.
I had not cried. Here "had" is action verb or helping verb?
Imagine the sentence without "not." Can you see the answer?
Yes. First one auxiliary and second one is action verb.
Good. That's right. And "not" does not change anything in that regard.