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Wed 3 May, 2017 07:13 am
Hello, there was a direct sentence we had to turn into an indirect one in english class, but I'm not sure I fully understand it.
"Would you mind waiting a moment?"
My teacher said it would be "she asked me if I minded waiting a moment", however, I thought it was "She asked if I would have minded waiting a moment", turning the conditional into a conditional perfect, the teacher told me it was wrong, but she didn't know how to explain me why.
Why can't I use the second sentence if I am supposed to use the tense which would​ be just before it? For instance: Past - Past perfect. Present continuous - Past continuous. Present perfect - Past perfect; Why can't I do "Conditional - Conditional perfect"?
@Alejandro3sr,
"would have" is unnecessary and, generally speaking, English teachers don't like filler words. I'm not sure why she wouldn't just say it though, unless she is working from a book with the answer and doesn't know the actual mechanics.
In the sentence "Would you mind waiting a moment?" the tense which is relevant is that of 'mind', which is present. There is no conditional here; "would you... " is a fixed conventional polite phrase. It can be replaced with "do you..." without any loss of meaning. Thus the "one tense back" is the simple past 'minded'.
@Alejandro3sr,
Quote:Hello, there was a direct sentence we had to turn into an indirect one in english class, but I'm not sure I fully understand it.
"Would you mind waiting a moment?"
My teacher said it would be "she asked me if I minded waiting a moment", however, I thought it was "She asked if I would have minded waiting a moment", turning the conditional into a conditional perfect, the teacher told me it was wrong, but she didn't know how to explain me why.
Why can't I use the second sentence if I am supposed to use the tense which would​ be just before it? For instance: Past - Past perfect. Present continuous - Past continuous. Present perfect - Past perfect; Why can't I do "Conditional - Conditional perfect"?
Alejandro, your teacher is having you do useless exercises. English speakers do not always change every bit of speech into Reported Speech. Often we say exactly what the original speaker said. The only thing Reported Speech tells a native speaker is that the person reporting said speech is not necessarily giving a direct quote.
A: "Would you mind waiting a moment?"
B: [to C] What did A say?
C: She said, "Would you mind waiting a moment?"
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