English translation: When Carol arrived, Mark cooked dinner.
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English to English translations [PRO] Education / Pedagogy / language usage
English term or phrase:when carol arrived home>>>>>>
hi dear,,
i want to ask about what do the sentences mean when there are two past simples at a time? what is the difference in times between the first and the second one ex.
when carol arrived , mark cooked dinner .
so does the first verb happen first ? or the second first or what ..... pls what is the significance?
Explanation: As a conjunction, when means at or during the time that. Thus your example implies that during the time of Carol's arrival, Mark began cooking dinner. Only one tense is used (past), but two times (past and present, or even future) are indicated. We can say, for example, either "When she closed the door, he laughed," or "He laughed when she closed the door." It makes no difference which comes first, the chicken or the egg. Both statements say that during her closing of the door, he laughed. The implication in your statement is that Mark waited to prepare dinner until Carol arrived. As Robert Bridges once wrote in London Snow: "When men were all asleep the snow came flying."
It is abundantly clear that the cooking process began only upon Carol's arrival. I guess Mark a) didn't want to eat alone b) didn't want to overcook anything or c) didn't want to serve Carol a cold meal.
Absolutely correct. The duration of the actions concerned is sometimes a matter of common sense, sometimes a mystery depending upon the context and one's knowledge, rather than the tense of the verb.
Doesn't give an indication of time taken. The tense provides a snapshot of the past and is very, very often used to show a sequence of events in the past irrespective of duration. He got up, showered, walked the dog, had breakfast, worked for 8 hours then had dinner. The sequence is set by the word order.
I think that Polangmar and Veronika (particularly the former) have got this muddled. The sentence cannot be read to include a meaning that he started to cook dinner before Carol arrived. The fact that Carol's arrival is a single point in time and cooking is continuous makes no difference whatsoever to the order in which these actions are stated to have occurred.
may be clear with 2 simple past tense verbs, the sentence is somewhat awkward, since cooking dinner is an activity that takes longer than picking up the phone (as in the example below). He may have started to cook dinner when she arrived...
I agree with Dennis and, by extension, with Martin, Nadia, Amel and Judith. :-) It's easy to see which action occurred first if we simply keep the subject the same: When Carol got home, she called her mom. (She got home first, then called her mom.)
Polangmar,
As a native speaker of English myself, I totally disagree with your analysis of the sentence. There is no way Mark could have cooked dinner before Carol arrived. As others have stated, the sentence would have to be written differently to convey this scenario, such as in the example provided by Nadia:
I think you can rule out the opposite possibility with certainty. "When" implies "as of that moment in time". As mentioned in comments below, to permit the possibility that Mark was cooking, or had already cooked, dinner when Carol arrived, the construction would have to be different.
By the way, naizzzak, I would suggest posting questions of this type in the English-English category since they do not involve Arabic. Also, you will receive a wider variety of answers from native English speakers.
I agree with Nadia. Mark did not start cooking until Carol arrived. Reversing the two clauses might help you see the meaning more clearly: Mark cooked dinner when Carol arrived.
It means as soon as she arrived he started cooking. Because if he had started before, it would have been: Mark was cooking dinner.
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3 hrs confidence: peer agreement (net): +2
When Carol arrived, Mark began to cook dinner.
When Carol arrived, Mark cooked dinner.
Explanation: As a conjunction, when means at or during the time that. Thus your example implies that during the time of Carol's arrival, Mark began cooking dinner. Only one tense is used (past), but two times (past and present, or even future) are indicated. We can say, for example, either "When she closed the door, he laughed," or "He laughed when she closed the door." It makes no difference which comes first, the chicken or the egg. Both statements say that during her closing of the door, he laughed. The implication in your statement is that Mark waited to prepare dinner until Carol arrived. As Robert Bridges once wrote in London Snow: "When men were all asleep the snow came flying."
Editor James United States Local time: 15:57 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 4
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peer agreement (net): +2
