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ESL forum >
Ask for help > Help me with grammar!
Help me with grammar!
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aydin1362
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Help me with grammar!
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Hi everyone! I need you expert help with the following structures: I should have done that. (But I didn �t.) I shouldn �t have done that. (But I did it.) I could have studied math. (But I didn �t.) Now, my question is: We should study more. = It �s better for us to study more. What if something was better for us to do in the past. For example: It was better for us to take some food with ourselves to school. It was not a good idea to waste your time with friends. (I mean I want to talk about something which was wiser to do. I don �t want to say that I did it or not.) How can I say it with should? We should take some food when we were at school!!!! We should have taken some food when we were at school!!!! |
20 Feb 2017
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douglas
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We should have studied more. We should have taken some food to school with us. |
20 Feb 2017
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aydin1362
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We should have taken some food to school with us. Doesn �t that mean we didn �t take food? |
20 Feb 2017
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douglas
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You �re right. Perhaps: One should take food to school. (it �s not past though). Otherwise, I can �t come-up with anything. |
20 Feb 2017
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yanogator
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I think you �re starting with a mistaken assumption. When you say "I should study more", you are saying that you don �t study enough, so there is a definite negative built into it. Therefore, when you talk about it in the past, the negative (but I didn �t) is going to be there when you use should in any tense. Bruce |
20 Feb 2017
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redcamarocruiser
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should have + past participle always implies the negative (that the speaker didn �t do as prescribed)
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20 Feb 2017
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cunliffe
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I agree with the others that �should � won �t do. Could you rephrase it like this: we needed to take food to school with us... But I don �t think you can quite get the meaning you are looking for. |
20 Feb 2017
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aydin1362
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Thanks everybody! But, what should I say instead? I have to disagree with Bruce as we don �t use should with a negative meaning all the time. It can be used for suggestions. For what you think is better to be done. For example, we should take more money. We shouldn �t eat unhealthy food. We should stay more. What do we use in English when a meaning like this is intended for the past? Can we use should? |
20 Feb 2017
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yanogator
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I said that when "should" is used in the past, the negative implication is there, so you aren �t actually disagreeing with me. It �s rather wordy, but one suggestion is "It would have been good to take some food to school. (although there is still a slight implication that we didn �t). Thinking about it, I �m realizing that since we know what happened in the past, we know whether we took food or not, No, we can �t use "should", as explained above. Bruce |
20 Feb 2017
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Jayho
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How about: these. Do these work? I don�t think so because they confirm that you actually did it. It would would have been better [to have/if we had] taken more food to school We would have been better off if we had taken more food to school We should have taken more food to school
but maybe
We should [always] take plenty of food to school
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20 Feb 2017
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aydin1362
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Thanks a million for the time and kind attentions! And, my special thanks to Bruce. |
20 Feb 2017
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