[Grammar] When I left the house this morning, it was already raining.

[Son Ho]

Please tell me which one is correct. I think all of them may be correct.

1. When I left the house this morning, it was already raining.
   
2. When I left the house this morning, it had already been raining.
   
3. When I left the house this morning, it had already rained.

 

[emsr2d2]

They're all grammatically possible.

 

[Tarheel]

Why do you want to use the word "already"?

 

[jutfrank]

Tell us what you mean and then we'll tell you which one, if any, says what you mean.

 

[Son Ho]

In my opinion, already in the first sentence emphasizes the rain. already in the second one tells me that the rain was in progress. already in the third one tells me that the rain had finished. If I were wrong, please explain to me.

1. When I left the house this morning, it was already raining.
   
2. When I left the house this morning, it had already been raining.
   
3. When I left the house this morning, it had already rained.

 

[jutfrank]

You've got it wrong. I asked you to tell us what you mean, and you haven't done that, so I'll now give you two choices:

1) When I left the house this morning, it was raining.
2) When I left the house this morning, I saw that it had been raining.

Sentence 1 means that there was rain in the sky at the time you left the house.
Sentence 2 means that there was no rain in the sky at the time you left the house, but you saw evidence of earlier rain on the ground.

Please do not try to make up your own sentences and then ask us what they mean. You must tell us what you mean with as many words as necessary, and then attempt to make just one sentence that expresses your intended meaning. If your sentence is correct, we'll let you know. If your sentence is not good, we'll give you a better way to say it. Just remember that we need to know exactly what you mean in order to give you guidance.

 

[Tarheel]

Let's start with the third one. It had finished raining.

If was raining at the time you are talking about it had also been raining.

I am still puzzled about why you want to use the word "already" there. ( There is no need for it.)

Example:

Sharon: Bob's here!
Sue: Already? He's not supposed to be here for another hour.

(Cross posted.)

P.S. Say: "If I am wrong ...."

 

[Son Ho]

I'm so sorry about using already in the three sentences. Because I want to know if already can go with the past continuous, the past perfect continuous and the past perfect or not, and what its meaning is in each sentence. I would like to know if already could be used in sentence 1, and I think it emphasizes the rain.

 

[Tarheel]

There is no need to apologize.

We use "already" to indicate that something happened sooner than expected.

There is no reason to believe that "already" emphasizes rain.

I wouldn't use the word in any of your sentences.

 

[emsr2d2]

I would use "already" in your context only if the fact that it was raining when I left the house was unexpected (but I had expected it to rain later). Here's an example situation:

The weather forecast that I looked at yesterday said that it would rain today from 8am. I wanted to go for a run today and I don't like running in the rain so I decided that I would leave the house at 7am for my run. At 7am, I opened my front door and discovered that it was raining! If I was telling someone about this later in the day, I would say something like "It was supposed to be dry until 8am so imagine how annoyed I was when I opened my front door at 7am, ready to go for a run, and discovered that it was already raining".

In that context, "already" means "at a time before something was expected".

Mum: John, why don't you go and play in the park?
John: I'll go later.
Mum: It's going to rain this afternoon so I think you should go now.
John: Haven't you looked outside? It's already raining!
Mum: Oh! I hadn't noticed. OK, you can carry on playing video games then.
John: Great!