He just saw his bike stolen.

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diamondcutter

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2014
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English Teacher
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Chinese
Home Country
China
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China
When he looked down from his flat window he saw a man was stealing his bike in the yard. He shouted at the thief but it was useless at all. Because he was on the 18th floor, it was impossible for him to get down to stop the thief. He just saw his bike stolen.

(Written by me)

I’d like to know if the last sentence makes sense in this context, which I used to mean “He saw the thief steal his bike.”
 
Try the past perfect. I'd also delete at all in the second sentence- you could use completely/utterly useless/pointless instead.
 
When he looked down from his flat window, he saw a man was stealing his bike in from the yard. He shouted at the thief but it was [completely/totally] useless. at all. Because he was on the 18th eighteenth floor, it was impossible for him to get down to the yard to stop the thief. He just saw his bike stolen. He could only look on/watch as his bike was stolen.

(Written by me)

I’d like to know if the last sentence makes sense in this context, which I used to mean “He saw the thief steal his bike.”
 
You could possibly throw in an adverb, thus:

He could only watch helplessly as his bike was stolen.
 
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