Saturday, June 20, 2015

grammar - "Have you got a chance to" vs "Did you get a chance to"




What is the difference between following two statements?





  1. Have you got a chance to look into this?

  2. Did you get a chance to look into this?



Answer



"Have you got a chance to X?" asks if the person has a chance to do something. E.g. "Have you got a chance to win the lottery?"




It essentially implies that being able to do something is mostly out of your control.



Asking "Have you got a chance to look into this?" would imply that "looking into this" is something that one is unlikely to do with out a lot of luck.



"Did you get a chance to X?" ask if the person has had time to do X. E.g. "Did you get a chance to go to the shop?"



It essentially implies that being able to do something is mostly constrained by other things in your schedule.



Asking "Did you get a chance to look into this?" would imply that "looking into this" is something that must compete with other things one must do to become a high enough priority to be done.




So 1) is about luck and 2) is about time management.


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