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Concordance des temps
Message de loxias posté le 14-09-2010 à 18:25:51 (S | E | F)
Bonjour à tous, j'ai quelques soucis avec les temps anglais qui me rendent dingue
Pourriez-vous me dire si ma phrase est correcte ?
"Listening to the crowded city's noise, I was looking at the moon's glow which came in from the window, when the phone rang again."
Merci d'avance de votre aide.
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Modifié par lucile83 le 14-09-2010 19:29
Message de loxias posté le 14-09-2010 à 18:25:51 (S | E | F)
Bonjour à tous, j'ai quelques soucis avec les temps anglais qui me rendent dingue
Pourriez-vous me dire si ma phrase est correcte ?
"Listening to the crowded city's noise, I was looking at the moon's glow which came in from the window, when the phone rang again."
Merci d'avance de votre aide.
------------------
Modifié par lucile83 le 14-09-2010 19:29
Réponse: Concordance des temps de gerondif, postée le 14-09-2010 à 18:38:49 (S | E)
Bonsoir,
vos temps sont corrects et la concordance respectée. I listen TO music (construction à corriger) et vos cas possessifs ('s) ne sont pas appropriés.
Réponse: Concordance des temps de loxias, postée le 14-09-2010 à 19:08:28 (S | E)
Merci de votre aide !
Réponse: Concordance des temps de notrepere, postée le 15-09-2010 à 07:01:52 (S | E)
Hello!
Your sentence structure is convoluted. The important thing to note is that two actions were happening when the phone rang. This is "classic" past continuous, so, in my opinion, all of actions that were happening when the phone rang should be in the past continuous. (What do you think, Gerondif?)
I was listening to the noise of the crowded city ... when the phone rang
I was looking at the glow of the moon ... when the phone rang
Now put them together:
I was listening to the noise of the crowded city and looking at the glow of the moon, which was coming in from the window, when the phone rang again.
OR
While listening to the noise of the crowded city and looking at the glow of the moon, which was coming in from the window, the phone rang again.
Cordialement
Réponse: Concordance des temps de benboom, postée le 15-09-2010 à 12:32:24 (S | E)
The important thing is that the tenses are correct; that was the original question. Everything else, it seems to me, is a matter of style and can be argued endlessly. I don't understand gerondif's statement about the incorrect possessives; there are only two apostrophes in the whole thing and they are both employed correctly.
Réponse: Concordance des temps de gerondif, postée le 15-09-2010 à 16:26:14 (S | E)
Hello,
As an old teacher, I have a tendency to stick to the old rules although everyday speech can prove me wrong.
Normally, an object cannot own another object with 's, a genitive: The keys of the car, the car keys, not the car's keys, so I found the two genitives inappropriate although often used that way. Notre Père wrote: "the noise of the crowded city" and "the glow of the moon", which would correspond to my old rules.
"which came from" didn't attract my grammatical wrath, but "which was coming from" would be more logical, as np said.
I liked "listening to " which I found more poetical than "while listening to"
Réponse: Concordance des temps de notrepere, postée le 15-09-2010 à 16:31:50 (S | E)
Hello benboom!
I was in disagreement about the tenses. I thought that all of them (except the last) should have been in the past continuous. In other words, "I was looking at the moon's glow which was coming in from the window" instead of the preterit.
The argument about apostrophes goes on and on. Suffice it to say (but in my opinion), in formal writing, apostrophes should be avoided. When they are used, they should generally only be used to show possession with people instead of objects: John's car. In other words, how can an object possess anything?
Cordialement
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