First Published: 3rd of January, 2021 by Patrick Carpen.
Last updated: January 3, 2021 at 14:51 pmThe following dialogue utilizes the three types of perfect progressives tenses:
- Past Perfect Progressive Tense
- Present Perfect Progressive Tense
- Future Perfect Progressive Tense
Can you identify them all?
Teacher: So how are you doing today, John?
Student: I’m great Miss Summers. And you?
Teacher: I’m great too. What have you been up to lately?
Student: Well, as you can probably guess, I’ve been studying my favorite subject: English Grammar!
Teacher: I’m not surprised!
Student: But I’ll tell you what’s surprising. By the end of this year, I will have been studying English Grammar for fifteen years and I don’t think I will even master it by then!
Teacher: I’m not surprised! English Grammar is extremely confusing. There seems to be too many exceptions to the rules, and sometimes I wonder who makes up these rules!
Student: Yes, some of these rules are so silly, you wonder if they were designed to confuse!
Teacher: Absolutely. My great grandfather was a pioneer in English Grammar. He actually wrote several books. He actually helped to made things easier. He contributed to the Holt’s Handbook of English Grammar. Before publishing his first grammar book, he had been studying English Grammar for over 15 years!
Student: Wow. I have been studying English Grammar for almost fifteen years and I don’t have a book out yet!
Teacher: That’s OK. Not everyone is passionate about writing grammar books. I have been studying English Grammar for thirty five years and I haven’t written one either!
Student: But I want to write one. I actually attempted to write one many years ago. But it was a flop because at that time, I had only been studying English Grammar for about two years. I mean, serious studies. I ran into so many stumbling blocks. But I won’t give up. I will give it a shot again in the year 2023. By then, I will have been studying English Grammar for 18 years! That’s right, my grammar studies will be legal by then. Haha.
Teacher: You sure are funny. You know what? I had thought about writing a book too, but not a grammar book, a chemistry book. Right after grammar, I have a passion for chemistry. They are both about rules and putting pieces together anyway. I think I’ll get back to writing that book when I finish my Doctorate in chemistry next year. By then, I will have been perfecting my grammar and chemistry skills for over 35 years.
Student: You’re right. Being a master of English Grammar is important if you want to become a writer of any kind of book. Otherwise, you have to hand it over to a professional editor to make sure it is free of grammatical errors. Let’s say you don’t know English Grammar, for example, and you publish a book on Chemistry, and you print a thousand copies… What happens if people start identifying grammar mistakes in your book? They will start losing respect for your work based on that because your book will have appeared inferior. And you know how people think!
Teacher: By the way, as we are talking about books. Do you know whom I met last summer?
Student: No…. Whom did you meet?
Teacher: I met Patrick Carpen! The great English author! He had been signing autographs at a bookstore in New York when I walked in. And guess what. He interrupted his work to shake my hand!
Student: No way! You are so lucky. I heard he was in my hometown last month, and my friend was inviting me to go get an autograph, but at that time, I had been trying to finish an assignment that I had to hand in the next day. My friend got an autographed copy of a book by Patrick Carpen, and I feel like such an idiot!
