Sentences understanding problem — going to the zoo

[Fwvo]

I've a problem in distinguishing different sentences. Please see.


1) They said that they had been going to the zoo on their bicycles. ( This sentence gives sense that in the past, they kept going to the zoo again and again)

Now see the following direct speech.

2) They said, "we were going to the zoo on our bicycles." (This line gives the sense that in the past they were going to the zoo only once not again and again)

Now when we convert the above direct speech into indirect speech it becomes.

3) They said that they had been going to the zoo on their bicycles. (Now this sentence is same as sentence 1. But sentence 1 gives another sense and this i.e sentence 3 is an indirect speech of sentence 2 that gives another sense.)

So how can we distinguish between sentence 1 and 3?

 

[teechar]

Re: Sentences understanding problem

Remember that context is important.

 

[Rover_KE]

Please note that I have changed your thread title.

Extract from the Posting Guidelines:

'Thread titles should include all or part of the word/phrase being discussed.'

 

[Fwvo]

Re: Sentences understanding problem

Remember that context is important.

Could you please elaborate?

 

[Fwvo]

It does , absent context, not suggest that.



Probably, but we need more context to be sure.

How can we add context. Could you please add context in those sentences?

 

[Fwvo]

One initial problem is that I don't think I would ever say "We were going to the zoo on our bikes". This is not because of the tense/aspect, but the 'going ... on our bikes'.

Do you know that the new learners of any language do not know the tricks that the native speakers of that language play with their language? Those learnes are already in mental perplexed situation and these tricks or perhaps scholarly babblings make the situation more worst.

 

[Fwvo]

In other words, teachers must always use easy language.

 

[Fwvo]

Scholarly babblings even have deeper meanings but ambiguous sentences are unbearable mental pains.

 

[jutfrank]

I believe that the reason for your confusion is that there are two ways to understand the meaning of the reported version:

They said that they had been going to the zoo.

If we understand that this means they went again and again, as a habit, then the direct speech version would use the present perfect (not the past continuous), like this:

"We've been going to the zoo."

 

[jutfrank]

If you want to report:

"We were going to the zoo."

with the meaning that they were currently on their way at the time of speaking, then the reported version would not backshift the tense. It would be:

They said that they were going to the zoo.

Finally, another way to understand the reported version above would be that it reports what was at the time of speaking a future intention of theirs. In this case, the direct speech version would use the present continuous:

"We are going to the zoo."

You might notice from this that when you transform sentences into direct speech and reported speech versions, you have to carefully consider the meaning.