In a situation, [for example] when the guy is continuously cheating and at the moment i say that sentence he is still cheating [/for example], should i say “he was cheating” or “he is cheating”?
There’re 2 variants of that example sentence:
“i screamed at him because he was cheating”
or
“i screamed at him because he is cheating”Let’s say, for example, that i screamed at him 5 minutes ago. He began cheating 10 minutes ago and now he is still cheating.
Which of these 2 variants should i use?
Answer
“I screamed at him because he was cheating”.
The point is he was cheating at the time you screamed. We use the Past Continuous with the Past Simple to say that something happened in the middle of something else. Some other examples:
I called the police when I saw that a stranger was trying
to unlock my neighbor’s door.Someone knocked when I was sleeping.
By the way, “yell” might be better than “scream” in this context. If you yell, you shout loudly, usually because you are excited, angry, or in pain. When someone screams, they make a very loud, high-pitched cry, for example because they are in pain or are very frightened.
So, I suggest “I yelled at him when I saw he was cheating.”
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Марк Павлович , Answer Author : Enguroo
