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هذه مناقشة مع أستاذة لغة بريطانية حول استخدام التعبير By the time

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SAYED


Would you please tell me whether the following sentence is correct or not?
Also, please tell me why?


- By the time Hesham had finished work, it was very late


You know that " By the time " must be followed by
past simple but here it's
followed by past perfect. So, I think it's wrong and
should be as follows


By the time Hesham finished work , it had been
very late


We can also say
By the time Hesham finished work , it was very
late


please let me know your opinion / kind explanation


CLARE


"You know that " By the time " must be followed by
past simple" - who said that? That's not true at all. In fact, you could use either past simple or past perfect


" It was already late by the time he had finished work"
"By the time he finished work, it was already late "


It depends whether you want to emphasise that one event finished work) happened before another (it was late). In this case, you don't need the past perfect because it's obvious which one happened first



SAYED



Many thanks for your reply but I know that " By the time "
before . So , we can say =


- Before Hesham finished work , it had been very late


Correct???


But we say


After it had been very late , Hesham finished work


Or


Hesham finished work after it had been very late


/ That is the difference grammatically between : Before
by the time and after


But as you know you can also put the two verbs in the past
simple


By the time/ Before Hesham finished work , it was very late


After it was very late , Hesham finished work


Believe me , that is what the grammar books say and also
what we have learned at schools


Do you agree with me?



N.B


In the mentioned sentence, the time became
very late first, then Hesham finished work


So,we can not say " By the time Hesham had finished " but we should say " By the time
Hesham finished ". Only the verb in second part
of the sentence can be either in the past perfect or the past simple


Thus we can say


By the time Hesham finished work , it had been
very late


Or


By the time Hesham finished work , it was very
late


But the other sentence is wrong


- By the time Hesham had finished work, it was very late


Do agree with me?



CLARE


Before / After he finished work, Hesham (did) something


No past perfect. You don't need it as it's clear by the use of before / after what the sequence of activities is. We only really use past perfect when the sequence isn't otherwise clear


You said "So,we can not say " By the time Hesham had finished " but we should say " By the time
Hesham finished ". Only the verb in second part
of the sentence can be either in the past perfect or the past simple." but this is NOT true. You can use the past perfect after "by the time" or the past simple


You can't use by the time instead of before. They mean the same thing, but the grammar is different. with "by the time" you are focussing on the events before another, so the past perfect is possible