Until he reached or reaches home

arcanegem

arcanegem

Senior Member
Hindi
Context - A girl is really happy to announce that she got her dream job and she only told her mother and sister about it , her father is at the office working, and the girl is ready to wait for him to come home but her sister says(with excitement)
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  • If I were you, I wouldn't be able to wait until he came home.
  • If I were you, I wouldn't be able to wait until he comes home.
Is there any possibility we can use " came home "? or it's patently wrong.
 
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    • T

    tunaafi

    Senior Member
    Česká republika
    English - British (Southern England)
    I take it you mean wouldn't in the first sentence.

    The answer to your question is that we can use 'came home'.
     
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    Edinburgher

    Senior Member
    Scotland
    German/English bilingual
    I wouldn't say "were" "came" is wrong, but I'd be reluctant to use it here, because although "if I were you" creates a hypothetical irreal context -- the speaker isn't her sister and never will be, this is sufficiently served by "I wouldn't". Even though the father's coming home happens to be part of the hypothetical scenario, it is nevertheless also part of reality. The fact that he will definitely come home justifies using "comes".

    (Edited to correct a silly mistake, in the light of #9)
     
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    arcanegem

    arcanegem

    Senior Member
    Hindi
    On the contrary, I got confused, and I still don't know which one is correct. Comes/came .
     
    homotopy07

    homotopy07

    Senior Member
    Japan
    Japanese
    Edinburgher said:
    I wouldn't say "were" is wrong, but I'd be reluctant to use it here, because although "if I were you" creates a hypothetical irreal context -- the speaker isn't her sister and never will be, this is sufficiently served by "I wouldn't". Even though the father's coming home happens to be part of the hypothetical scenario, it is nevertheless also part of reality. The fact that he will definitely come home justifies using "comes".
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    (1) I wouldn't be able to wait until he came home.

    (2) I wouldn't be able to wait until he comes home.

    Are both sentences correct?
     
    C

    Carolinian

    Member
    English-American
    arcanegem said:
    • If I were you, I wouldn't be able to wait until he came home.
    • If I were you, I wouldn't be able to wait until he comes home.
    Is there any possibility we can use " came home "? Or is it wrong?
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    I wouldn't use the second one. You could say: "I can't wait until he comes home."
     
    C

    Carolinian

    Member
    English-American
    arcanegem said:
    Yes, I did make a reference to the past.

    "I didn't hear what you said"
    "I didn't understand, what you said"

     Do you still think these are wrong?
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    That's two very different statements. "I didn't hear what you said" could refer to something the person just said, or it could refer to something he said much earlier. However, if the person has just spoken "I don't understand what you said" is natural. Everything depends on context. For example, if the person says, "Why didn't you respond to me?" then "I didn't understand what you said" would make perfect sense. However, generally we use past tense to refer to something that happened in the past.
     
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