Friday, October 19, 2018

Completed action in the past lead to an ongoing action - which tense to use?



I am a bit confused about the proper tense for the following situation. I try to make an example:




A couple of weeks ago I talked to someone. We have not talked or communicated in any way again since then. So this action is completed and lies in the past.



This talk lead to an action that takes place right now. So it is ongoing and in the present. Which form is grammatically correct:




  1. After a talk with Y, I write this sentence.

  2. After having a talk with Y, I write this sentence.

  3. After a talk with Y, I am writing this sentence.

  4. After having a talk with Y, I am writing this sentence.




or even




  1. After having had a talk with Y, I write / am writing this sentence.

  2. After I had a talk with Y, I write / am writing this sentence.



Thank you very much in advance for your answer!


Answer




That unqualified use of after will always make people think it means directly after, so all of those are more confusing than things that are more explicit:




  • I talked with X a few weeks back, but am only just now writing about it.

  • Having talked with X a couple weeks ago, I’m now writing about what I learned then.



You can also use had in many narrative styles:





  • I had talked with X about all this two week ago; now I’m finally getting around to writing about what I learned during our talk.


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