He (to make) a report when I (to leave) the meeting

[milan2003_07]

Dear friends,

I'm continuing to use the Grammar book by Golizinskiy entitled "Grammar. Book of Exercises" (published in Russia and in the Russian language) and below is the sentence I was wondering about:

"He (to make) a report when I (to leave) the meeting". No more context, just this sentence.
The task is to put the verbs in the correct form using past indefinite or past continuous.

I think the right option is to use past continuous in the first case with "make" and past simple with "leave": "He was making a report when I left the meeting".

However, I think that one more option is possible when we use "to leave" in continuous. This will correspond to the process of leaving the meeting because his leaving the meating didn't probably happen instantaneously, but took some time: "He was making a report when I was leaving the meeting".

Am I right with the two possibilities?

Look forward to your reply .

 

[jutfrank]

When was this Golizinsky book published? It seems terribly old-fashioned. Moreover, the questions are abjectly awful. If Golzinsky doesn't give enough context to reveal a clear answer, and if he doesn't explain what he means by 'put the verbs in the correct form', the whole thing fails. Is this from a section of the book to do with the past continuous, by any chance?

I understand the book has a good reputation among Russians, but I strongly suggest you work from an alternative.

 

[milan2003_07]

When was this Golizinsky book published? It seems terribly old-fashioned. Moreover, the questions are abjectly awful. If Golzinsky doesn't give enough context to reveal a clear answer, and if he doesn't explain what he means by 'put the verbs in the correct form', the whole thing fails. Is this from a section of the book to do with the past continuous, by any chance?

I understand the book has a good reputation among Russians, but I strongly suggest you work from an alternative.

The book by Golizinskiy was published in 1998 regarding the edition I'm currently using. Maybe it was also published some time earlier, I've no idea. I was studying in a school with extensive learning of English (from 1993 till 2003) and we used it quite often to practise the English grammar. This book is quite popular with Russisans and I also use it to teach my students whose level of English isn't very high.

As for me, I prefer to use books for teaching published by foreign editions like Cambridge or Oxford and I've had a lot practice with them and luckily many of them are available electronically or online. Golizinskiy doesn't say exactly "put the verbs in the correct form". He says "Open the brackets using the verbs given in past simple or past continuous".

Unfortunately, the book doesn't provide any context. I suspect it's not because Golizinskiy didn't want to or didn't know that context was needed, but because the book is mostly for learners and maybe he believed that the context would make the text too involved. Anyway, when I was studying the English grammar, I didn't think much about it.

Thank you for your comments. I suppose in the future I'll make a choice on another source for teaching grammar. Now we've already started using Golizinskiy for Grammar studies and my students find it fine as they almost knew no grammar we took up this book.

Returning to my original question: Can you comment on the two sentennces above that I've highlighted in bold? As an English teacher, I really need to understand if they are fine in a suitable context.

I'll provide them again:

"He was making a report when I left the meeting".

"He was making a report when I was leaving the meeting".

 

[Tarheel]

A brief note. Say:

They knew almost no grammar.

By "He was making a report when I left the meeting" I assume he was talking.

 

[jutfrank]

Golizinskiy doesn't say exactly "put the verbs in the correct form". He says "Open the brackets using the verbs given in past simple or past continuous".

Okay, that's a bit better.

Unfortunately, the book doesn't provide any context. I suspect it's not because Golizinskiy didn't want to or didn't know that context was needed, but because the book is mostly for learners and maybe he believed that the context would make the text too involved.

Hmm, I'm not sure about that.

Now we've already started using Golizinskiy for Grammar studies and my students find it fine as they almost knew no grammar we took up this book.

Well, I hope it works out for them. There's a lot of poor Russian teaching materials out there, which could be attributed to generations of Russian speakers misunderstanding things when it comes to verb aspect.

Returning to my original question: Can you comment on the two sentennces above that I've highlighted in bold? As an English teacher, I really need to understand if they are fine in a suitable context.

I'll provide them again:

"He was making a report when I left the meeting".

"He was making a report when I was leaving the meeting".

Yes, they're both grammatical, and so is:

​

He made a report when I was leaving the meeting.

But again, if we can't see the meaning, what's the point of using these examples? Golzinsky hasn't made it obvious what he means.

 

[milan2003_07]

Yes, they're both grammatical, and so is:

​

He made a report when I was leaving the meeting.

But again, if we can't see the meaning, what's the point of using these examples? Golzinsky hasn't made it obvious what he means.

I can see that grammatically the sentence "He made a report when I was leaving the meeting." is correct, because one continuous action (his leaving the meeting) is interrupted by another action - he made a report.

Is it really possible that he made a report in one moment when I was leaving the meeting? Does it make sense?

 

[emsr2d2]

He says "Open the brackets using the verbs given in past simple or past continuous".

Okay, that's a bit better.

Really? I was about to post that the "Open the brackets" sentence was complete and utter tosh. I've never seen "Open the brackets" used that way.

 

[milan2003_07]

Really? I was about to post that the "Open the brackets" sentence was complete and utter tosh. I've never seen "Open the brackets" used that way.

Why does this phrase arouse such emotions in you?
How can we say "Put the verb in the correct tense" otherwise?

 

[Tarheel]

How can we say "Put the verb in the correct tense" otherwise?

I don't know, but why do you need to say it differently? (I have no idea what it means to either open or close brackets.)

 

[Piscean]

Why does this phrase arouse such emotions in you?

"Open the brackets using the verbs given in past simple or past continuous" makes no sense at all.

 

[kttlt]

"Open the brackets" makes good sense in Russian, so I assume it's either a literal translation by milan himself or an oversight on the book author's part. Would "remove the brackets" be better or is this something people just don't say in English?

 

[Tarheel]

@kttlt I wish people would stop saying that. It can't make sense in Russian. It's not Russian. It's English. That is, the words are English. Maybe by "It makes sense in Russian" you mean the Russian sentence when translated is that sentence. However, it doesn't mean anything to me as written. Furthermore, it is not helpful to an advanced learner to be constantly referring to his/her first language.
🫤

 

[kttlt]

I wish people would stop saying that.

I wasn't trying to make an argument for using that phrase in English, I was asking if there's a more suitable one that still utilizes the word "brackets", even acknowledging the possibility that there is not. I understand that languages don't exist as the exact translations of each other, but there are quite often similar expressions. As a non-native speaker I won't know if something is plausible in English unless I ask the native speakers.

 

[Tarheel]

As far as I know, "brackets" is not used that way in English. However, there are a lot of things I don't know. In any case, since it is not an expression I'm used to in the slightest, I wouldn't use it.

You already mentioned "Put the verb in the correct tense," which anybody can understand.

 

[Piscean]

Put the verbs in brackets into an approriate form, choosing past simple or past continuous.

 

[jutfrank]

Really? I was about to post that the "Open the brackets" sentence was complete and utter tosh. I've never seen "Open the brackets" used that way.

Yes, the "open the brackets" part doesn't make sense, of course. I'd assumed that this was just a poor literal translation from the original Russian.

 

[milan2003_07]

Well, actually the phrase "open the brackets ..." was a iteral translation from Russian into English. In fact, I didn't suspect that the phrase was wrong and unnatural. In Russian it's maybe not the best form to say, either, but it's generally understandable.

Thank you for the suggestions and out of them all I like something like "Put the verbs in brackets into an appropriate form using/choosing past simple or past continuous". The phrases "put the verbs in brackets into the correct tense" or "put the verbs in the correct tense" are also fine and clear. Maybe we can also say "Put the verbs given in past simple or past continuous" or "Put the verbs in brackets into the correct form / an appropriate form". I have some doubts whether we need to use "the" before "correct tense" or should it be "a correct form".

I would also try "Make the sentences sound grammatically correct by putting the verbs (in brackets) in the correct form / an appropriate form". However, I'd rather not use such a phrase in grammar books because, I believe, grammar books require task formulations to sound more concrete and less vague.