How it went vs. How it goes.

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hi. I’m having trouble deciding whether to use “How it went” or “How it goes” in the context of “I look forward to hearing…”.

At first I wrote “I look forward to hearing how it goes”. Then I thought that what I would actually be doing in the future is “hearing how it went”, so changed it to that. But “went” sounds wrong when the event hasn’t happened yet, so now I’ve confused myself.

Which one should it be? Thanks for any help.

2

Hi CC,

You could only use ‘how it goes’ if ‘it’ has not taken place yet.

You can use ‘how it went’ if ‘it’ has already taken place, but you have not heard any reports about ‘it’ yet.

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[size=75]“There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt [/size]

3

That’s very clear, thanks!