0

I haven't seen David for ages. The last time I saw him, he was trying to find a job in Miami

This sentence comes from Raymond Murphy's grammar in use (AmE edition) I've been told many times that Past Continuous provides background info for main events, but I don't think "was trying to find a job" is background for "I saw him". As I understand, in real conversation the listener will expect me to add another event to which "was trying" will serve as background. e.g.

The last time I saw him. He was trying to find a job in Miami, so I invited him to work for my IT startup

another good option might be to rephrase the sentence into Simple Past, regular actions, which sounds like a fact, a complete event and don't require any follow-up info:

The last time I saw him He worked on getting a job in Miami.

The last time I saw him He sold counterfeit goods

  1. Which parts of my understanding are incorrect?
  2. Is that true that Murphy's sentence is self-sufficient and doesn't require any additional events?
  3. If so, why is it self-sufficient in this case?
Mr. Past Progressive
  • 456
  • 2
  • 12
  • 3
    "Providing background info. for the main events" isn't the only purpose of the continuous tense. It simply means that the action was ongoing - here, David was making repeated attempts to find a job. Nothing more is required to make it a valid sentence. – Kate Bunting Jul 16 '22 at 07:56
  • Thank you. So in this case we are using Past Cont. because "He tried to find a job" would sound like a complete action because of the verb choice ("try" has a final goal and is perceived as singular complete action). Basically, we are using Continuous here to make it clearer that there was some repetitivenes to his attempts, while "tried" would sound like there was one complete attempt as in "he tried to find a job but failed and started drinking". Do you think this understanding is correct? – Mr. Past Progressive Jul 16 '22 at 08:04
  • 1
    Yes, that is correct. – Kate Bunting Jul 16 '22 at 08:06

0 Answers0