smallwhite wrote:Version 1
5 am, I heard Alice in Wonderland. A few minutes later, it pulled me out completely from my dreamland.
Yes, although the sentence is still ungrammatical. It doesn't need 'out' and 'completely' has to precede the verb.
smallwhite wrote:Version 1
5 am, I heard Alice in Wonderland. A few minutes later, it pulled me out completely from my dreamland.
tungemål wrote:1: A few minutes later, it pulled me out from my dreamland
2: A few minutes later, it had pulled me out from my dreamland
I'm thinking that both are grammatically possible. In the first sentence, "a few minutes later" points to the moment when you're waking up. While the second points to the moment when you're awake, right after having been woken up. So the "had pulled" is already in the past.
In effect they mean the same, but could be that 2 is more idiomatical and feels more natural.
Le Baron wrote:smallwhite wrote:Version 1
5 am, I heard Alice in Wonderland. A few minutes later, it pulled me out completely from my dreamland.
Yes, although the sentence is still ungrammatical. It doesn't need 'out' and 'completely' has to precede the verb.
In general I find simplicity better, though perhaps you are aiming for a literary effect? So I imagine myself choosing something more like: 'Minutes later I was fully awake'. If I'd chosen something closer to yours, for poetic effect, then maybe: 'within minutes her voice had drawn me completely out of my slumber...'
allf100 wrote:I learnt that if something happened in the past, for example, ten minutes ago, I should use past tense; and if it happened earlier than the certain time in the past, i.e. twenty minutes ago, I should use past participle [you mean Past Perfect Tense]. Am I correct?
allf100 wrote:In this case, the story pulled me out from my dream, and I totally woke up. It happened AFTER I got my MP3 player. Why did you use 'had pulled' - past participle here?
allf100 wrote:I know my English is bad. You don't have to encourage me about this. This doesn't throw a wet blanket on me, but keeps me learning.
allf100 wrote:Hello!
Would someone please proofread this piece of mine for writing exercise? If you don't have time to point all the errors out, I will be grateful if there're just a few corrections which will be very helpful.
Please just take your time. Thank you!
Home, Sweet Home
The song with stongest emotional memory attached to me is an English song titled Home, Sweet Home by American lyricist John Howard Payne and English composer Sir Henry Bishop. Most of time, I try to avoid listening to the song because it can cause many emotional ripples on my heart pond. Sometimes, it was just sneaking into my heart and playing alone involuntarily silently with a virtual gramophone called memory.
When I was teen, one day I was clumsily teaching myself to play a song on my electronic organ in our home, and my father instantly told me this was a world famous song named Home, Sweet Home in Chinese. I was very surprised, and couldn't believe he would have known that, as we lived in a small city where had little touch with the outside world.
By then, I liked this song which just sounded very beautiful, elegant, and nostalgic, but it didn't really strike a chord with me because I was happy. And I didn't realize this period was my happiest time in my life when I was care-free, though we had to pinch Chinese cents to get by.
After many years later, my father died of cancer. I moved to Shanghai. After working, I was wandering alone on the buzzing street in one of the busiest metropolis, looking up the neon lights which were winking on skyscrapers afar, but I had no idea where I was going to. I couldn't call the place I slept home. The loneliness was just like the endless evening shrouding me. I remembered the song, our humble home, my father... Some liquid was dropping down along my cheeks but it was not raining...
noblethings wrote:.
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