When the Sun <rose> <had risen>, he was gone.

[emsr2d2]

All of these examples strike me as so formal as to be of little use in the real world.

All the way back home on the train, I had stomach ache.

If you're not studying for an exam, I strongly suggest you concentrate on speaking English the way native speakers actually speak it, rather than how it might be taught in textbooks. Watch films and TV series in English, listen to English-speaking radio and podcasts. It'll be much more use to you than slogging your way through dozens of these types of scenario.

 

[5jj]

Do you think something in that text is ungrammatical? Perhaps for you it depends on who wrote it.

No. It's a forum rule that we have the title of the book and the name of the author of any words we quote.

It's from an adaptive book for English language learners by Cambridge University Press.

What is an adaptive book?

 

[Michaelll]

What is an adaptive book?

Sorry, I meant 'adapted', an adapted book for English learners.

 

[5jj]

can you give us the title and author, please?

 

[Michaelll]

can you give us the title and author, please?

Oxford Bookworms Library, Stage 2, Alex Raynham - Leonardo da Vinci, Chapter 3 Painting and sculpture

 

[jutfrank]

I think that works because his working happened throughout the entire action of painting, so we don't have to use the past continuous here (When he was painting...), right?

I think that's not right. Not really. Basically, the conjunction when means that the two actions (or events) occurred in some sense simultaneously. (There are different ways that two events can be simultaneous.)

However, in this particular context, we interpret that the working and the painting were both durative. But still, this is just an interpretation. There's nothing in the aspect itself that tells us that the actions were durative.

Look at a different context, with the same grammatical aspect, and you'll see the difference:

I sneezed when I was washed my car.

The event relationship here is clearly not that the sneezing lasted throughout the period of washing. We know that sneezing doesn't work like that. Remember the part that lexical aspect (the meaning of verbs) contributes to correct interpretation.

My idea is to show that the pain in 'my' stomach happened throughout the entire action of returning to (a city).

• When I returned to Kaliningrad by train/on the train(?), I had stomach pains / I suffered from abdominal pain.

For this context, the obvious interpretation is that you're talking about the completion of returning. In other words, you're talking about being in Kaliningrad. For that reason, you need to use the past continuous—to show that you're talking about being on the train, and not in Kaliningrad.

The use of the continuous aspect biases the listener towards an atelic interpretation, which is what you mean.

 

[Barque]

Watch films and TV series in English, listen to English-speaking radio and podcasts.

And read books and magazines and articles by native speakers.

I learnt my English more from books and writings than from conversation - while I spoke a lot of English to people, they were mostly Indian-English speakers.