[Grammar] - It happens/happened in the past (2025)

a. Past forms of verbs in English aren't only for talking about things that happens in the past. Here are 5 ways you can use past forms to talk about times other than the past.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/course/towards-advanced/unit-8/session-1

b. For anything that happened in the past, your best bet is to stick with a past tense.

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(a) is in the present simple whereas (b) is in the past simple. I am wondering why.

And in (c), should it be the action "... adapted from" happens in the past or happened in the past?

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c. As you can see, there are three tenses used in the phrase "adapt something from something". I am wondering why. For me, I would think the action "... adapted from" happens in the past.

kadioguy said:

a. Past forms of verbs in English aren't only for talking about things that happens in the past.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/course/towards-advanced/unit-8/session-1

Click to expand...

The blue part of the sentence is ungrammatical. I guess the author meant to write "things that happened in the past".

Thank you both.
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1. So the answer to (c) is I would think the action "... adapted from" happened in the past. Am I right?

2. However, I got so many hits when googling "happens in the past". In what contents can we use it?
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1) Yes.

2) One such case is where the past is seen as just one domain of a generally timeless set of events. We use the present (simple) tense when we want to present an event/state as timeless, or neutral, or general (take your pick) with respect to temporality.

For example, see the headline here: http://www.digitaljournal.com/scien...ecide-what-happens-in-the-past/article/434829

You ask a lot of questions about the relation of language to the concept of time, kadioguy. I think you need to think a bit deeper in order to really understand the use of English in this respect.

I'd like to suggest a starting point for you to do this: First understand that our selection of verb tenses is related to the concept of psychological time, and not to the concept of historical time. These two concepts are very much related but are fundamentally different. I believe this to be at the heart of your confusion.