استخدام التعبير By the time

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

هذه مناقشة مع أستاذة لغة بريطانية حول استخدام التعبير By the time

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SAYED

Would you please tell me whether the following sentence is correct or not?
Also, please tell me why?

- By the time Hesham had finished work, it was very late

You know that " By the time " must be followed by
past simple but here it's
followed by past perfect. So, I think it's wrong and
should be as follows

By the time Hesham finished work , it had been
very late

We can also say
By the time Hesham finished work , it was very
late

please let me know your opinion / kind explanation

CLARE

"You know that " By the time " must be followed by
past simple" - who said that? That's not true at all. In fact, you could use either past simple or past perfect

" It was already late by the time he had finished work"
"By the time he finished work, it was already late "

It depends whether you want to emphasise that one event finished work) happened before another (it was late). In this case, you don't need the past perfect because it's obvious which one happened first

SAYED

Many thanks for your reply but I know that " By the time "
before . So , we can say =

- Before Hesham finished work , it had been very late

Correct???

But we say

After it had been very late , Hesham finished work

Or

Hesham finished work after it had been very late

/ That is the difference grammatically between : Before
by the time and after

But as you know you can also put the two verbs in the past
simple

By the time/ Before Hesham finished work , it was very late

After it was very late , Hesham finished work

Believe me , that is what the grammar books say and also
what we have learned at schools

Do you agree with me?

N.B

In the mentioned sentence, the time became
very late first, then Hesham finished work

So,we can not say " By the time Hesham had finished " but we should say " By the time
Hesham finished ". Only the verb in second part
of the sentence can be either in the past perfect or the past simple

Thus we can say

By the time Hesham finished work , it had been
very late

Or

By the time Hesham finished work , it was very
late

But the other sentence is wrong

- By the time Hesham had finished work, it was very late

Do agree with me?

CLARE

Before / After he finished work, Hesham (did) something

No past perfect. You don't need it as it's clear by the use of before / after what the sequence of activities is. We only really use past perfect when the sequence isn't otherwise clear

You said "So,we can not say " By the time Hesham had finished " but we should say " By the time
Hesham finished ". Only the verb in second part
of the sentence can be either in the past perfect or the past simple." but this is NOT true. You can use the past perfect after "by the time" or the past simple

You can't use by the time instead of before. They mean the same thing, but the grammar is different. with "by the time" you are focussing on the events before another, so the past perfect is possible