[Grammar] Tense in conditional sentence

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Snappy

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Which one of the underlined tense is acceptable?


"I would fly to England and visit a lot of historic places while I stayed/stay there if I had enough time and money."
 

tedtmc

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Which one of the underlined tense is acceptable?


"I would fly to England and visit a lot of historic places while I stayed/stay there if I had enough time and money."

while staying there


not a teacher
 

2006

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Which one of the underlined tense is acceptable?
You can say 'while staying there', 'while I stay there' or 'while I'm there', but you don't need those words. They don't add anything useful.


I would fly to England and visit a lot of historic places (there) if I had enough time and money.
 
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tedtmc

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True... if you don't stay there, where else do you stay?
 

sarat_106

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True... if you don't stay there, where else do you stay?

I think, additional information about place and duration of stay is necessary. You dcould say;

If I had enough time and money, I would fly to England and visit a lot of historic places during my stay there/while I am there.
 
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2006

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I agree, additional information about place and duration of stay is necessary. You dcould say;

If I had enough time and money, I would fly to England and visit a lot of historic places during my stay there/while I am there.
I don't think you understood tedtmc's last post. tedtmc is saying that you don't need a phrase like 'during my stay there'.
 

sarat_106

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I don't think you understood tedtmc's last post. tedtmc is saying that you don't need a phrase like 'during my stay there'.

Thank you for this clarification. His second part of the question struck me to think that if not there it could Paris or another nearby city unless you specify. So I stand corrected to this extent.
 

Snappy

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My question is concordance of tense but my sentence example was bad.

I made another sentence example.

"If he could come to Japan, I would meet him while he stayed/stays (=during his stay) in Tokyo."

(He cannot come to Japan in fact)

The above is a conditional sentence. My question is which one sounds OK, "stayed" or "stay."
 

bhaisahab

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My question is concordance of tense but my sentence example was bad.

I made another sentence example.

"If he could come to Japan, I would meet him while he stayed/stays (=during his stay) in Tokyo."

(He cannot come to Japan in fact)

The above is a conditional sentence. My question is which one sounds OK, "stayed" or "stay."
"Stayed" is ok, but "during his stay" is better.
 

Raymott

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My question is concordance of tense but my sentence example was bad.

I made another sentence example.

"If he could come to Japan, I would meet him while he stayed/stays (=during his stay) in Tokyo."

(He cannot come to Japan in fact)

The above is a conditional sentence. My question is which one sounds OK, "stayed" or "stay."
It seems your early interlocutors have put off the hard question.
I agree with bhai that "stayed" is correct here. Naturally you can use this as a template for similar sentences unrelated to staying anywhere - ie. you can use the past tense form.
I promised my sister that I would mind her baby while he ate.

However, I'm not sure that 'stays' and 'eats' is incorrect. Others might prefer it.
 

Tdol

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I made another sentence example.

"If he could come to Japan, I would meet him while he stayed/stays (=during his stay) in Tokyo."

(He cannot come to Japan in fact)

The above is a conditional sentence. My question is which one sounds OK, "stayed" or "stay."

I agree that stayed fits, but I actually think that this sentence would work better if you put those verbs into the perfect because he can still come to Japan at some point in the future and it is only the current trip (the fact you refer to in brackets) that has fallen through:

If he could have come to Japan, I would have met him while he was staying/stayed in in Tokyo.
 
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