every time + past simple/present perfect

[Dominik92]

Hello all!

I have recently found one sentence on the internet " Every time this year he got walk- through he won a tournament. " It was in the middle of tennis season so I asked my teacher to tell me why there wasn´t present perfect instead of past simple. She wasn´t quite sure whether or not it was possible to use present perfect in that sentence as every time may indicate the same thing as when - exactly saying the period when it happened ( a moment in time) . However she asked her boyfriend (American) and he came up with the following thing you can see below. In his opinion all the two ways to say it are possible.

Every time this year he

- played .................he won.

- has played ............he has won.



Where is the problem? Yesterday I wanted to check this with my teacher again (coz of another problem) and she told me that it may not work in the end and the only safe tense will be past simple which can be used because of "every time" - emphasizing a moment in time when it happened.

My question is whether "every time" can be the reason for using past simple instead of present perfect even though a season is still running. It would be focused more on the moment when it happened - "every time" would work as when. Or the past simple (if the season would be still running) would be used by Americans?

Thank you very much for your time!
​

Thank you very much for your time

 

[J&K Tutoring]

In many situations, there can be some 'overlap' in possible verb tenses, and it's generally best to use the simplest. The given example is a series of individual events, not a continuous situation, so it's easier to find and talk about definite breaks in a time line.

I'd like to mention a couple of problems with the example sentence:

Every time this year he got walk- through he won a tournament.

1. I'm not very familiar with tennis terms, but I've never heard of 'walk- ​through'. If it's the name of a specific thing associated with the game of tennis, the it should be capitalized, and there should not be a space after the hyphen. If it refers (as I assume) to permission granted by drawing of lots to advance without playing because of an odd number of players (We call this a 'bye'), then the indefinite article 'a' should precede 'walk-through'.

2. Before the word 'tournament', the article should be the definite 'the'. As written, the tournament he got the walk-through is not necessarily the same tournament he won.

 

[tedmc]

I think OP means a walkover instead of "walk-through".
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/walkover

 

[emsr2d2]

This season, every time he got a walkover, he won the tournament.

 

[Dominik92]

Thank you for explanation.

Would it be possible to do a sort of overlap (with past simple)in the following sentences?

1) So why not play one more Olympics and maybe do something else extraordinary, because every time I have played in them, something has happened. (said by Federer whose career is still on - going)

2) I have won eight trophies this season. (season is still running)


On another forum I got the following advice:

Every time I got (have got) a walkover this year, I won (have won) the tournament.

With past simple the speaker is thinking of each of these successes as a finished event in the past. He isn't thinking of them as an ongoing process that hasn't finished yet because there are some more matches to be played this year. Either way of thinking, and so either choice of tenses, is valid

Is it possible to apply this on my two sentences above as well? I find it weird to do a similar overlap in the sentence in "I have won 8 trophies this season" when the season is still running and I expect to win more of them. I understand it in the sentence with "walkovers". There is no need to expect more of them - therefore finished event.

However y teacher told me that it is possible to say: I won two trophies this season (in the middle of the season) - if I wanted to tell you more details about, how hoard it was to win those two trophies - I wouldn´t be giving emphasize on the fact that I have them. - But my teacher didn´t seem to me to be 100% sure about this.

Would you be so kind and help me with this problem? I would really appreciate it.