[Idiom] Phrases

[Will17]

Hello!

Are theses sentences grammatically correct?

-There are two types of Presents Perfect.

-What's "gâteau" in English?

-When he says this to you, understand it as a compliment.

Thanks a lot

W

 

[xpert]

-There are two types of Presents Perfect.
Actually, you can add the word 'tense'. However, there is only one present perfect in English.

-What's "gâteau" in English?
:tick: You can also say, what does a .... mean in English?

-When he says this to you, understand it as a compliment.
Using the word 'understand' in the imperative mood sounds awkward -at least to me - because it is a stative verb not an action one.

-When he said this to you, I understood it as a compliment.

I hope I helped you, bro

 

[SoothingDave]

Not a teacher.

I don't see any problem with "understand" as an imperative.

 

[xpert]

I don't see any problem with "understand" as an imperative.

Stative verbs are not normally used in the imperative mood because we cannot order someone to be in a certain state

 

[SoothingDave]

It's perfectly understandable. He is telling the other person how to interpret what a third person says.

I could say to my daughter, "When I ask you if you have set the table for dinner, understand it to mean you should do it now."

I am telling her how to understand what I am saying.

I don't think "understand" is a "stative" verb in this usage. It's not expressing a state, it's an action of going from one way of thinking to another.

 

[xpert]

What you wrote sounds reasonable :-D

 

[Heterological]

The rules for stative verb usage as laid out in the grammar books are yet another source of annoyance for me. Almost all stative verbs either have an action meaning, which often isn't so different from their stative definition, or they are used idiomatically in the progressive, imperative, or whatever else they're not supposed to be used in anyway. There must be a better way to teach students to say, "I come from Uganda" rather than "I'm coming from Uganda" without having them memorize a long list of stative verbs and an even longer list of the exceptions.

 

[Atchan]

Stative verbs usually refer to a state or condition which is quite static or unchanging. They can be divided into verbs of perception or cognition (which refer to things in the mind), or verbs of relation (which describe the relationships between things).

Note that we CANNOT use these verbs in the continuous (progressive) forms; you CAN'T say "*Yong is owning three cars." Owning is a state, not an action, so it is always in the simple form.

 

[Heterological]

That's precisely the problem, though: there are so many exceptions. No, you don't say someone is "owning" a car, but:

McDonald's slogan is "I'm loving it." (Love is a stative verb, but has been used in the progressive at least as far back as 1965, when Otis Redding released "I've Been Loving You Too Long.")

"Do you see where I'm coming from?" is a common idiomatic expression meaning, "do you understand my position/motivation?" Yet "come" is a stative verb.

Every stative verb relating to senses and perceptions has an active usage as well: consider ache, feel, hear, hurt, look, notice, observe, perceive, see, smell, sound, and taste.

I recently tried to help my students understand the concept by compiling a list of stative verbs from various textbooks, then putting asterisks next to the ones that can be used in the progressive under certain circumstances. Guess what? More than half of them turned out to have exceptions.

I had another idea for a rule of thumb to help them understand whether or not something could be used in the progressive, without having to memorize so much. We had played charades the week before, so I told them that if the verb was something you could possibly act out, then it could be used in the progressive. For example, the word "indicate" is listed as a stative verb, but it can be used in the active sense of "point out." If you are using it in that sense, it is possible to convey the meaning with gestures.

Unfortunately, I don't think it made a lot of sense to them, so I went back to the lists. Still, I think there has got to be a better way.

 

[Raymott]

Two or three months ago, I asked if anyone could come up with a stative verb that couldn't be used progressively.
The challenge is still open.

 

[Will17]

-There are two types of Presents Perfect.
Actually, you can add the word 'tense'. However, there is only one present perfect in English.

Thanks a lot.

There are two types of Presents Perfect in English: The Present Perfect Simple and the Present Perfect Continuous. ;-)