For the last few years, I've been noticing that my non-native English speakers, especially the Hmong students, are using the auxiliary verb "had" much more than necessary. It's weird. I wish someone would do a study on it.
Here's the sample paragraph I just read that's making me think about this phenomena:
Since last Wednesday we had gotten another chance to rewrite our paper after the feedback we gave the featured writers that day on their essays. I had read over my paper a few times and added a few details that we had heard during workshop. I had even taken some of my feedback into consideration and included those points into my paper. Since then, I added my opinion where it was needed. I had also added some more details of the writer's techniques she used to write her article. I had explained more on how the author portrayed logos and pathos and went more in depth on those topics.
The problem, of course, is that in this narrative of her/his writing process, the timeframe is hard to figure out. What happened when? The "had"s are supposed to indicate action that happened before the past-tense action. Right away, beginning with "Since last Wednesday," the student indicates a time period. The "had gotten" messes up the idea we had going because of the word "since."
I guess English is hard, but listening to Josh talk about Polish verbs, I'm not sure it's any harder than other languages. I wish I knew what was going on here.
Update: The student is a native English speaker! In fact, she's a very privileged suburban teen.
Here's the sample paragraph I just read that's making me think about this phenomena:
Since last Wednesday we had gotten another chance to rewrite our paper after the feedback we gave the featured writers that day on their essays. I had read over my paper a few times and added a few details that we had heard during workshop. I had even taken some of my feedback into consideration and included those points into my paper. Since then, I added my opinion where it was needed. I had also added some more details of the writer's techniques she used to write her article. I had explained more on how the author portrayed logos and pathos and went more in depth on those topics.
The problem, of course, is that in this narrative of her/his writing process, the timeframe is hard to figure out. What happened when? The "had"s are supposed to indicate action that happened before the past-tense action. Right away, beginning with "Since last Wednesday," the student indicates a time period. The "had gotten" messes up the idea we had going because of the word "since."
I guess English is hard, but listening to Josh talk about Polish verbs, I'm not sure it's any harder than other languages. I wish I knew what was going on here.
Update: The student is a native English speaker! In fact, she's a very privileged suburban teen.
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