I HAVE been following your articles and gather that in writing reported speech we can choose to use the past or present tense if the situation reported is still true at the time of reporting.

In this regard I would like to seek your confirmation on whether the present tense can be used in these examples taken from The Star.

1. “Speville said that corruption was still a serious problem.”

Speville was the former Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption of Hong Kong. Since corruption is still prevalent in Hong Kong, can “was” be replaced with “is” or can both verbs be used interchangeably?

2. “He said the family still believed Muthuraja was alive.”

Since the family believes Muthuraja is still alive, can “is” be used?

3. “I would appreciate it if she actually spoke to me first before making these comments about our marriage. It’s our life, not a movie.”

Since she had not spoken to him, will the base form “speak” be more appropriate?

4. “Asked what action would be taken if Suppiah and his team refused to vacate the Johor Bar secretariat, Ragunath said they (the council) would address the problem if it arose.”

Can the present tense “arises” be used instead of “arose”?

5. Is it correct to say that we use “has” when an event has just happened or occurred recently and “had” for something that happened in a longer period? – Teresa

1. Either “was” or “is” can be used in the sentence.

2. The original sentence is correct, but in the situation you describe, you can also use the present tense in the two reported clauses, so that the sentence would read:

“He said the family still believes Muthuraja is alive.”

3. No, the base form is not used in such a sentence. However, the sentence should have been written as a third conditional one, since it is about what could have happened but didn’t. This sort of sentence uses “would/could/should/might have + past participle of verb” in its main clause and a verb in the past perfect tense in its “if” clause. It would then read as follows:

“I would have appreciated it if she had actually spoken to me first before making these comments about our marriage.”

The use of the third conditional sentence can be seen in the following quotation from a speech in the British parliament by Robin Cook in 2001:

“I would have appreciated it if sometimes during the 18 years, my right honourable Friend had made it clear that he was happy for us to rebel against his instructions.”

4. The whole sentence here is written in reported speech, and since the reporting verb “said” is in the past tense, what is reported should also be in the past tense. What is reported here is not a situation that is still true at the time of reporting, but what someone said a council would do in the future if something did not happen.

The present tense “arises” would be used if the report ends with a quotation:

Asked what action would be taken if Suppiah and his team refused to vacate the Johor Bar secretariat, Ragunath said, “We will address the problem if it arises.”

In this quotation, the speaker uses a first conditional sentence, since it is possible that the problem mentioned above may arise. A first conditional sentence uses “will or shall + base form of verb” in its main clause, and a verb in the simple present tense in its “if” clause.

5. No, no, no! This is a very common misunderstanding about the use of the present perfect (has/have + past participle) and the past perfect (had + past participle) tenses. The length of time does not matter at all in distinguishing between the two.

Generally, we can say that the present perfect tense is used to relate past events or situations to the present, while the past perfect tense is used to distinguish between two different times in the past.

Let me give some examples:

“She has lived in that house for 30 years.” This means she started living in that house 30 years ago and is still living there now. Although 30 years is a long time, we use the present perfect tense.

“Mary received a thank you card from an old lady she had helped during an accident the previous week.” Although the thank you card arrived only about a week after Mary had helped the lady, we use the past perfect tense for the earlier past event (“had helped”) and the simple past tense for the later past event (“received”).

Is or was?

“When Mr A visited Japan he had to adjust to Japanese culture which was different from his.”

Don’t you think that “is” is the correct verb to use in the sentence? – S.S. Rajah

There are two times involved here. One is the present of the writer of the sentence. The other is his past, when Mr A visited Japan. It is unlikely that Japanese culture and Mr A’s culture have become identical between that time in the past, to the writer’s present. This is because cultural changes are usually very slow, and one country’s culture hardly ever becomes identical to that of another country. So, it is reasonable to assume that Japanese culture is still different from Mr A’s culture, in the writer’s present. The sentence should therefore be written as you suggested, i.e.:

“When Mr A visited Japan he had to adjust to Japanese culture which is different from his.”

However, we can use a past tense verb in the last clause, if we change the sentence to:

“When Mr A visited Japan, he had to adjust to Japanese culture which he found to be different from his.”

In the second sentence we are talking not of a difference of cultures as such, but of Mr A’s past reaction to this difference.

Last year

1. How do you define “last year”? Does it mean “tahun terakhir” or “tahun lepas”? How do we say “tahun terakhir” in English? Is it “final year”?

2. In this sentence, “I’ma let you go”, may I know the meaning of “I’ma”? – Ahmad

1. The term “last year” by itself means the year before the present. Since I am writing this in 2010, “last year” to me would mean 2009 or “tahun lepas”.

“Tahun terakhir” can be expressed as “the last year” or “the final year”, for example in: “This is the last year of my school life.” and “My sister is in the final year of her medical studies at university.”

2. According to wordnik.com, “I’ma” is a non-standard expression that means “I’m going to” and it is usually followed by a verb. Thus “I’ma let you go.” means “I’m going to let you go.” You shouldn’t write “I’ma gonna” (as in your subject line) because that means I’m going to going to”, since “gonna” is also a non-standard expression meaning “going to”.

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