Quote:
Originally Posted by yppah  Hi teachers,
I am writing a thank-you letter and not quite sure about the sentence below. Your kind suggestion please.
Should it be "I could not make it without your help." or "I could not have made it without your help."
Thank you |
Sorry, but I have to disagree.
They are both correct.
The first would be used for the present tense moving to the future.
If the person is helping you now or has promised to help you, then the first is correct. The past tense "could" is used because "making it" is conditional on the help. I could not make it without your help.
If the person helped you in the past, then the conditional drops back one tense to the past conditional: could + have + past participle. I could not have made it without your help.