Future In The Past - Part 2

Robby Kukurs
Author of the English Harmony System

As you know I have dealt with the the English speech and confidence issue by successfully using the simple technique outlined in the English Harmony System.

However...I went to a shop to buy a new laptop computer because my old one which I'd been using for nearly four years! broke down.

Then I started to speak with the shop-assistant asking him about the features of different laptops. And suddenly...I felt that something's wrong with my speech and on few occasions the guy even re-asked me the question because he hadn't gotten me right.

Walking out of the shop I realized what mistake I did - a very simple one - I was trying to speak very fluently and with a native accent. As I hadn't experienced the English speaking issue for a long time I had become so confident...actually TOO confident!

And the strangest thing is that it ISN'T that easy to spot the issue, to understand what was going wrong during the speech. Only by analyzing the situation later on I realized what I'd been doing wrong!

Last time I was telling you about the "Future In The Past" tense and how the word "will" changes to "would" when the the first part of the sentence is in the past and we're telling about something what is going to happen in the future.

Well, actually not only the word "will" is affected.

If you're talking about something that's happening in the past then it demands that the whole sentence changes to past and all the verbs accordingly.

For example, you want to say that you know that your sister lives two houses from you - only in the past tense.

You maybe want to say "I knew that my sister lives two houses from me". Actually this is wrong. You have to say : "I knew that my sister LIVED two houses from me".

You see - the first verb KNEW which is in past demands the second verb to be in the past tense as well.

In your own language such a rule doesn't necessarily apply, but in English it does:-)

Another example - "my mom told me that she WAS going to apply for a new job". Notice - you don't say "my mom told me that she IS going to apply for a new job". Once again the first verb in the past TOLD demands that the second verb has to be used in the past as well - WAS.

These are little things, but put some effort into slowly changing your speech accordingly and it will eventually make your English sound much better!

Happy speaking!

Robby Kukurs
Author, English Harmony System

Lesson1
Lesson2
Lesson3

Are you ready to get on the fast track to spoken English fluency? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!