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  • We were hot because we'd run.

I am trying to solve this mistake, but it sounds right. This mistake is grammatical. the second sentence

J.R.
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Bavyan Yaldo
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3 Answers3

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There is no grammatical mistake here. "We'd" can stand for "we had", "we would" or "we should".

In this case, it stands for "we had": "We were hot because we had run."

rjpond
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  • I took this sentence from a question demanding to find the grammatical mistake. How this could be? – Bavyan Yaldo Sep 06 '17 at 23:34
  • I edited the question and added a picture relating to my question. Look at it. – Bavyan Yaldo Sep 06 '17 at 23:38
  • My best guess is that the expected correction might be "...because we'd been running". – rjpond Sep 07 '17 at 00:01
  • @Bavyan: Looks like the people who wrote the test failed. Their understanding of English is a subset of actual English. #4 can also be correct as well as it stands. Sure, you could say "went" there, but "go" works as well, and may even be preferable depending on the context. – Robusto Sep 07 '17 at 00:14
  • On #4, Cambridge are also recommending "went" ( http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/it-s-time ), but when it was last discussed on ELL there was some support for "go" ( https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/38525/its-time-you-to-bed ). It's also been debated on the English SE ( https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/61963/why-do-we-say-its-time-we-ate-and-not-its-time-we-eat ). – rjpond Sep 07 '17 at 00:46
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    (Interesting to note, "time we go" is used without comment as part of a transcript of BrE native-speaker conversation at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/theenglishwespeak/2013/11/131119_tews_150_bottomless.shtml ... as part of a programme that was intended to help people learn English.) – rjpond Sep 07 '17 at 00:58
  • @Robusto - Unless I’m missing something, I think Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5 all seem fine. – J.R. Sep 07 '17 at 01:52
  • I'm not sure if #5 breaks any grammatical rules, though I think "couldn't" or "can't" would be much more idiomatic. In terms of #3, "If I would have seen" is considered non-standard in BrE... Might be accepted in AmE, though. – rjpond Sep 07 '17 at 02:21
  • @J.R.: I'd prefer "If I had seen you, I would have stopped," but that's probably a style issue. For #5 I suppose a pedant would argue that mustn't mustn't be contracted in cases involving present perfect, but I wouldn't care to make that argument. – Robusto Sep 07 '17 at 03:01
  • I agree with J.R except for #5. "mustn't" does fit well in there although it is grammatically correct. Indeed "couldn't" or "can't" would be prefered. Assuming that it's a grammar book (probably a poor written one) we shouldn't consider "It's time we go home" as correct, most grammar books give "went" as the only correct option. "If I would have seen you, I would" is also inappropriate. It should be "If I had seen you, I would" – SovereignSun Oct 07 '17 at 07:59
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Just a guess here, but I would say: We were hot because we'd been running. (as has been noted by a previous answer, the we'd is a common contraction that native speakers use to express we had). But "had run" seems awkward compared to my version. (past perfect continuous)

see https://www.grammarly.com/blog/verb-conjugation/

acloudrift
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0

We were hot because we'd run.

The sentence is correct but most English tests and grammar books explain this mistake this way: there should be an action in the progressive aspect preceding the result.

  • We were hot because we had been running. - is obviously prefered by tests and grammar books. The reason we were hot was because before that we had been running (this is the reason why we were hot).
SovereignSun
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