[Grammar] I bought a book on Excel to see what advanced Excel skills I could learn

[uktous]

Hi,

Background:
I understood some basic Excel skills, but I did not know any advanced functions Excel had.
I wanted to know how to use Excel.
Therefore, I bought a book to look at what Excel could do.

Question:
Is the correct?

Sentence:
I bought a book on Excel to see what advanced Excel skills I could learn.


Thanks

 

[Raymott]

Hi,

Background:
I understood some basic Excel skills, but I did not know any advanced functions Excel had.
I wanted to know how to use Excel.
Therefore, I bought a book to look at what Excel could do.

Question:
Is the correct?

Sentence:
I bought a book on Excel to see what advanced Excel skills I could learn.


Thanks

Yes, the sentence is correct.

 

[TP09]

Sentence:
I bought a book on Excel to see what advanced Excel skills I could learn.

**Not a teacher**

I'd use "I have bought a book..."

 

[Raymott]

**Not a teacher**

I'd use "I have bought a book..."

Why?
uktous wants a sentence that conforms to the situation:
Therefore, I bought a book to look at what Excel could do.
There's no reason to change the tense.

 

[TP09]

Why?
uktous wants a sentence that conforms to the situation:
Therefore, I bought a book to look at what Excel could do.
There's no reason to change the tense.

**Not a teacher**

Strange, I was taught you normally use present perfect in sentences without computation of time.
But I guess that's just me then

 

[Raymott]

**Not a teacher**

Strange, I was taught you normally use present perfect in sentences without computation of time.
But I guess that's just me then

Yes, if I understand what you're saying, that's true.
As a stand alone comment, that sentence would sound better in the present perfect tense to me as well.
But this was an exercise to fit various facts into one sentence, and given that all the facts were in the simple past, there's no reason to make the resulting sentence anything but simple past.

 

[Barb_D]

I've seen at least one other learner say that.

They know that they can't use present perfect when there IS a specific time reference, but somehow think they MUST use it when there is NO time reference.

That latter part, of course, is not true.

 

[TP09]

I've seen at least one other learner say that.

They know that they can't use present perfect when there IS a specific time reference, but somehow think they MUST use it when there is NO time reference.

That latter part, of course, is not true.

**Not a teacher**

I said you normally use it when there's no computation of time.
Look at my previous sentence: no time reference and yet I used 'said'.

However I'd definitely use present perfect in the previously mentioned sentence.

 

[Tdol]

The first post sets the context with three sentences in the past- I wouldn't use the present perfect there because of the context supplied by these. It's not a sentence in isolation for me.

 

[TP09]

The first post sets the context with three sentences in the past- I wouldn't use the present perfect there because of the context supplied by these. It's not a sentence in isolation for me.

**Not a teacher**

Yes. Well, if you take that into account then I guess you're right.