has or had

[jack]

"Do you still take Spanish lessons? "

If use "had", how would the sentence look like?

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by jack

"Do you still take Spanish lessons? "

If use "had", how would the sentence look like?

There is no use of "had" that goes with this meaning. +|

[jack]

ok, thanks

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by jack

ok, thanks

You're welcome. :wink:

[jack]

I have a part of an article here:

byNaoibhO'Connor
staff writer

It was the neighbours who noticed first. Rats were crawling all over the alley behind an East Side Chinese restaurant, prompting neighbours to call the health department. David Jantzen, one of the city's 40 environmental health officers, jumped in his car and headed out to inspect the place. When he arrived, the owner claimed he hadn't noticed any problems, but Jnni/.en insisted on looking around. Downstairs, lie spotted a piece of plywood covering an acess point to the crawl space. Lifting it up, Jantzen was shocked at what he saw.

"At the bottom, there was liquid in it and it looked like sewage—that was pretty disgusting," he recalled of the incident, which occurred several years ago.
The sewer line had buckled and separated at the point where it connected with the restaurant's toilets. Customers' raw waste was simply being flushed underneath the building, attracting rats that could easily spread contaminants around the property.
The owner admitted he'd known about a leak in die sewage system, but blamed the building manager for failing" to fix it. Neither had done anything to address the health risk. Instead, they were arguing about who was responsible and who would pay for the sewer line repair. It's unclear how long the line had been broken—maybe weeks, maybe months.

"Neither had done anything to address the health risk". <---- why had?? why not have?? what difference does it make in meaning if they used "had" or "have"?

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by jack

I have a part of an article here:

byNaoibhO'Connor
staff writer

It was the neighbours who noticed first. Rats were crawling all over the alley behind an East Side Chinese restaurant, prompting neighbours to call the health department. David Jantzen, one of the city's 40 environmental health officers, jumped in his car and headed out to inspect the place. When he arrived, the owner claimed he hadn't noticed any problems, but Jnni/.en insisted on looking around. Downstairs, lie spotted a piece of plywood covering an acess point to the crawl space. Lifting it up, Jantzen was shocked at what he saw.

"At the bottom, there was liquid in it and it looked like sewage—that was pretty disgusting," he recalled of the incident, which occurred several years ago.
The sewer line had buckled and separated at the point where it connected with the restaurant's toilets. Customers' raw waste was simply being flushed underneath the building, attracting rats that could easily spread contaminants around the property.
The owner admitted he'd known about a leak in die sewage system, but blamed the building manager for failing" to fix it. Neither had done anything to address the health risk. Instead, they were arguing about who was responsible and who would pay for the sewer line repair. It's unclear how long the line had been broken—maybe weeks, maybe months.

"Neither had done anything to address the health risk". <---- why had?? why not have?? what difference does it make in meaning if they used "had" or "have"?

This is a perfect example of the difference bewteen the present perfect and past perfect tenses.

The writer use "had been done" because she was talking about the time between the owner and building manager discovering the problem and the time frame of the story (which is in the past). The time of the story is set at the time that Jantzen investigated the problem. The owner had discovered the problem before Jantzen investigated it. The use of the past perfect clearly sets the time when "nothing had been done" to a time before Jantzen arrived. :wink:

[RonBee]

If we were to use present perfect we would say, "Neither has done anything about the problem." We would be talking about a situation in the present.

[jack]

I have been there sometime in the last week. <--is this sentence wrong? why?

[Tdol]

It's wrong- don't use the present perfect with a time period that is complete- use the past tense.

[jack]

http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfect.html

"I have been to Mexico in the last year.
(I have been to Mexico at least once at some point between 365 days ago and now. We do not know exactly when.) " <--so is the site wrong?