[color=blue]I was living in Paris for five years when I first took a French class. [color=red]Wrong
[color=blue]I was living in Paris for five years when I first started/began working. [color=green]Correct
No source
Self-made sentence
Hello,
Once a native English speaker told me that my self made sentence example #1 is wrong with “was living”. Do you agree with him? If yes, then why? Why doesn’t it work? What’s the difference between sentence number 1 and 2? Why 1 is wrong but 2 is correct? They have the same construction. I’m confused.
When an activity begins at some time in the past, and when what happened/was happening before that time for a particular period needs to be mentioned, then the first activity is put in the past perfect or past perfect progressive as in: The baby had cried/had been crying for about an hour when its mother started feeding it.
If the given sentences are looked at from this point of view, neither of them is correct. So, the observation made by the native English speaker is acceptable.
Nevertheless, ‘I was living in Paris when I first took a French class’ is not wrong.
Both the sentences are incorrect. There are multiple errors. They are colloquial English. Anglophile has tried to clear the confusion to some extent, ignoring the faulty construction. Alan would not allow me to go into the details.
The linked pair of sentences is an example of bad grammar because ‘when’ doesn’t connect the two clauses. ‘When’ indicates a starting point but a period of time - ‘for five years’ is not a starting part. You can rectify the grammar if you say - I had been living/had lived in Paris for five years before/and then I started learning French.
Then, Alan, wouldn’t it make a difference if we put it this way? When I started learning French, I had lived/had been living in Paris for five years. (One of the lexical meanings of ‘when’ is ‘at or during which time’, though)
To my uneducated ear, it was not the construction but the choice of tense (Past Cont) that you could possibly blame.
To me, you might well get away with “I had already been living in Paris for five years when I first [whatever I did]” meaning the period of non-working\non-studying ended, and a new chapter of my life began.
(Relying on the definition of ‘when’: conjunction after—call me when you’ve finished).
What do you think?
Yes, the title of the post and the poster’s concern are about the tense construction, which, I think, I have explained.
Besides what Alan (‘before/and then’) and you (‘already’) say, I 'd say we can also use ‘by the time’ in place of ‘when’.
I’d like to hear from Alan, anyway.
Thank you very much for your brief explanation, which I could not give because once in 2014 you advised me not to initiate any hair-splitting discussion. I would request you to comment on my post “to nowhere but/nowhere but to”.
Hi Friends,
I can’t but interfere with your discussion. In the given sentences ‘when’ has been used as a relative adverb. Pl. note that ‘when’ acting as a rel. pron. can’t qualify a specific period of time. ‘When’ can also be a conjuction and thus, joins two independent clauses. Let’s not lengthen the discussion so as not to confuse beginners.
I presume that this forum is a blend of members (and even visitors) who are learners (active and passive), teachers (native and foreign) and observers (moderators and coaches). Discussions should be welcome when they are corroborated with plausible explanations. Only through discussions can we widen the horizon of our limited knowledge. Acceptance of a debated/disputed usage is left open to the participants.
Now, coming to the subject matter of ‘when’ I’d say it is basically a conjunction. When it functions as a relative adverb, it undertakes two roles. One is to relate (connect/combine) two clauses and the other is to replace an adverb; hence the name.
Let’s take the given sentence as an example. Here we find two clauses: I had been living in Paris for five years. Then I started learning French. The relative adverb (conjunction) ‘when’ steps in and joins these two clauses into one single sentence (Complex) replacing the adverb ‘then’. Thus we get either ‘I had been living in Paris for five years when I started learning French’ or ‘When I started learning French, I had been living in Paris for five years’.
Take another example of a relative adverb: This is the house. I lived here for five years. We can combine them using the relative adverb ‘where’ and get: This is the house where I lived for five years. Here we treat ‘the house’ as a ‘place adverb’ and say ‘here’.
Take the same example this way: This is the house. I lived in it for five years. Combining them we have: ‘This is the house in which I lived for five years’. Here we treat ‘the house’ as a ‘noun’ and use a relative pronoun (which).
Incidentally, when, where, how etc are Relative Adverbs; they are not Relative Pronouns like that, what, who etc.
To me, a specific period does not pose any problem to the use of ‘when’. For instance, we may say: In the 1970s when (or perhaps even ‘while’) we worked in the university, linguistic researches kept us awfully occupied. We had worked for over five years when we submitted the thesis.
This is too vague. You have to indicate ‘working’ first and then ‘submitting’ second. This can just about work if you say - We had worked for over five years before we submitted the thesis.
Thank you, Alan. That makes the situation certainly more clear to a listener. So is the insertion of ‘already’ in the other clause in lieu of ‘before’.
The use of ‘already’ is in a different clause so it cannot stand in lieu of ‘before’ in the latter clause.
This would not be ideal in the given scenario, but you could get away with it:
We had already worked for over five years when (at the point at which) we submitted the thesis.
For emphasis of the length of time worked, it is possible to use both ‘already’ and ‘before’:
We had already worked for over five years before we submitted the thesis.
If you write it carefully then perhaps you will be better understood.
You didn’t specify which of the other clauses you were referring to. I assumed you meant the existing one, but it seems not.