Wednesday, October 19, 2005

About Grammar

Today, I studied unit 47 exercises. In 47.1 no.2, the answer is: "How long have they been married."

Can I answer this exercise like this: "How long have they married?"?

Last week, in unit 43, 43.1 no.7, the answer was: " Three men are said to have been arrested after the explosion."
Can I answer this exsercise like this: " Three men are said to be arrested after the explosion."?

Teacher could please give me some corrections.

2 comments:

Richard Blum said...

No, but you could say,"How long ago did they get married?" or even, "When did they get married?" These questions ask for a fixed date in the past.

Richard Blum said...

For the second question, please remember that this is an example of reported speech.

Also, the arrest occurred in the past. We could say:
"It was reported that three men were arrested."

If, however, we want to emphasize that the men are still in police custody, we can use the present perfect: "It is reported that three men have been arrested."