Did and done?
By killahclaire
@killahclaire (3665)
February 26, 2007 4:58am CST
Right here is a question for you? Do you know when to say did and done?
I live in the UK and have spoken English since birth. Had a shot at learning a few other languages but never made it past beginner stage.
I read alot of books and probably have an average IQ although the high end. I have always worked or been in education.
Now my problem is I don't know when to say did or done. Its just one of those thigns I can't remember and I always think it must make me sound so uneducated.
Now I knwo alot of you are going to tell me when to use the right one but I really want to know what you think of foreigners speaking our language. Alot of them could tell us more about the structure of English. I rememeber having a frech canadian girl ask me what past participles were and how they were used and I had no idea. Another french canadian girl stepped in and explained it all to her in perfect english and I felt like i was really letting the English language down. It's meant to be so great and I can't even speak it properly.
In my defence though I do live in Scotland and what I have been brought up around is not perfect english. If you look at my posts yiou will probablysee how scottish words make their way in without my realising and you could probably point out sentences that don't make grammatical sense but I have been saying them my whole life.
I think we could really take a good at our language again and maybe be taught it from the view fo a foreigner. SO many people jsut learn sentence structure from the poeple round about us and english professors would be disgusted. WHat is your opinion on this and is there any aspect of the Engish language that you can not understand no matter how hard you try.
5 people like this
14 responses
@MrCoolantSpray (1005)
• United States
26 Feb 07
My dad's a french teacher at an american high school. When he teaches grammar, he ends up having to teach english grammar first, before he can begin to teach french grammar. It's not something people teach very much. It seems to me that grammar in your native language is something you kind of pick up intuitively, but with a foreign language, it's much, much harder to grasp. I mean, you ask most people if they know what the "future imperfect" verb tense is, and they'll just give you a funny look. But they can say "I'll be mowing the grass later", correctly conjugated, without thinking about it.
It's not so much a question of not speaking English well, or if the language is dying, it's just not seeing how the house is constructed until you get outside of it.
3 people like this
@manong05 (5027)
• Philippines
27 Feb 07
It's been ages since I left school and if my memory serves me right, here is what I remember about what the book says about did and done. Did is the simple past tense of do. "Done", without have, has or had is an adjective otherwise it is a past participle, have done,has done or had done. I think you are referring to an adjectival use of done which I understand can be sometimes confusing. "Done" can be used in the sense of "over". The teacher can say to his students "class, one more test and we're done", or a food can be sometimes referred to as done or well done. Another variation of the use of done is when referring to what people in a certain society is doing like "this is a done thing" as far my country is concerned. Ok I'm done for now. Cheers.
2 people like this
@chargoans (939)
• United States
27 Feb 07
Great perspective of the words! I didn't even think of the adjective use of done, referring to your meat classifications. Well done! Or in other words, good job! :-)
1 person likes this
@arlerambabu (1079)
• India
27 Feb 07
Being English one need not be an expert in English In the recent past i found more number of Indians are getting prestigious awards like Bookies and so on. I'm an Indian.I don't think I can call myself an expert in Hindi or even in my Mother tongue. Robert Brown an English man has compiled a Dictionary for Telugu speaking people. And even today it's a regular in all the libraries of the state Andhra pradesh' So you need not feel sorry for your small lapse. I liked the honesty in your discussion. regards.
2 people like this
@rosie_123 (6113)
•
26 Feb 07
Well both my late Mother, and my partner learnt English as adults, so I now a bit about the difficulties. My man did not speak a work until he was 21, and though it is not his first language, I always think he speaks the language better than many natives! He still makes some quite basic errors (even after only 20 years!), but I think they are cute, and endearing!!! I love accents anyway!
I think English is quite a hard language to learn, as we have so many words that look the same but sound different - for example ROUGH, BOUGH, THOROUGH etc all look very similar, but are pronouced completely differently.
As for the Scottish thing - well my first husband was Scottish and they do have some quite different ways of saying things. The one that comes to mind is when they say "where do you stay?" instead of "where do you live?", and the use of "just now" in a different way from the English.
As for "did", and "done". They are both past tense - I always think of it this way.................... if the action is qvite a long way in the past you can say "I did that", but if it has only just happened, you are more likely to say "I have done it".
Cheers
2 people like this
@killahclaire (3665)
•
2 Mar 07
Another thing I have noticed is the scottish say how instead of why
For example: Person 1:I am going to go to the shop??
Person 2: How?
Person 1: to buy some milk.
@abhishekkaushik (327)
• India
27 Feb 07
well i dont live in uk but ai have learned few language including english and i find knowing good english makes ur life very easy..
2 people like this
@kurujo (16)
• Nigeria
26 Feb 07
First of all, "do" is present tense, "did" is past tense and "done" are past participles. In addition "doing" is present continuous tense.You cannot use "done" without putting "has", "have" or "had"."Has" is singular "have" is plural and "had" is past tense.These are examples.I "do" the work everyday.(present tense) I "did" the work yesterday.(past tense) I have "done" the work.(past participle) .Here are some examples again;They "do" the work(present).He has "done" the work.(past participle for singular person)They have "done" the work/ they "had" done the work(past participle for plural persons. You have to apply all these principles and other principles before you can speak good english.They are very simple and you have to put it in mind when speaking or writing. One can make mistakes but you should correct yourself . You can get some text books on principles of english
2 people like this
@chargoans (939)
• United States
27 Feb 07
I think that this is the best explanation! Very thorough!
If using slang, which I do not suggest, you could say "I done did the dishes" lol That is slang from the Louisiana area of the US (also referred to as Cajun) ;-) Just a little extra for you to ponder.
@cuddleme01 (2725)
• Philippines
27 Feb 07
It’s really not that hard to use did and done. Did is a past tense of Do.For Example i did my homework. While "done" is the past particle of do. done is always used with has/have/had. So you say i "have done" my homework. Past Participle is meant to express something that just happened very recently. always remember to use has for single tense, have for plural tense, had for past singular/plural tense.
@Eskimo (2315)
•
26 Feb 07
When I was at school (some years ago - and I won't admit to how many it was) grammar was tought as part of English studies, including things like present & past participles, parsing sentences and spelling and when to use commas, colon, semi-colons etc; which a lot of people found very boring and confusing; leading to most or all of it being dropped from school studies. It was also a major part of 'O' level exams in those days, which it took me three attempts to pass.
It probably should be re-introduced but in a simpler and less formal manner, so that schoolchildren (and adults) can be made more aware of the English language and structure, but perhaps not need to take any examination in it
2 people like this
@freesoul (3021)
• Egypt
27 Feb 07
I think it's natural that people who speak any language as a mother tongue may not be very eloquent with it, we use different dialects and accents that it may end up sounding like a whole different language.. Only few people need to have perfect English (or whatever is their native language) if they in the writing or teaching language fields.. For informal posting here at mylot it doesn't make much difference and actually foreigners find it most useful here to learn more slang and strange expressions than to learn standard English that they can learn in schools or books.
@yanjiaren (9031)
•
26 Feb 07
well i know i always use it in the past tense
1. to denote something that has just happened now ore recently..
i have made..
2. to denote something i have done in the past without reference to time..i made ..
i made a cake..it could be anytime..
i have made a cake.i made it recently..
oh gosh i am crap at explaining grammatical terminology etc..better someone else have a go lol..
@nowment (1757)
• United States
27 Feb 07
To this day I do not know what a dangling participle is, and I wonder if some teachers should be dangling their participle in front of impressionable children.
Seriously we were taught to graph a sentence, and what each meant, but even though I was two grades ahead in reading, I was close to failing english and spelling.
I for some reason never could get it down in my head, I have vague notions of prepositions etc, but it never seemed that vital to me.
A big part of the language for me is does it sound right? Sometimes the correct phrasing doesn't to me sound right so I am not likely using the correct proper English.
I maintain that I don't speak English I speak american, but languages were never my gift. I love reading, respect the written word, and value those with this gift.
But being able to write well or properly doesn't make one a good story teller, which I am not, yet to me a good storyteller is worth more than someone who can graph a sentence.
I like you feel that all those things I was taught about the English language as a child are nearly completely forgotten, and I don't see a real need to know it.
1 person likes this
@retardedrugrat (4791)
• Canada
26 Feb 07
I too was born and brought up in the UK, and my parents always corrected me if I said something wrong.
However, I moved out to Canada three years ago and omg, their use of the English language puts us UK types to shame!
On the other hand though, as much as Canadians have a little trouble understand my Yorkshire accent, they say they love hearing it. I've had people in Tim Hortons ask me where I'm from and how much they like the accent.
English is not that hard to learn. It's easy to speak and yet most of us brought up with the language still manage to chew up and spit out words occasionally. I think a big part of that is because its so easy to mix up words such as to, too, two and so on. I don't think it makes us sound uneducated though. I think a lot of it depends on where we were brought up. The people I know from Yorkshire spoke exactly the same way I did and used the same words. Its something that we just don't think about.
2 people like this
@HolyMosesMalone (415)
• United States
26 Feb 07
oh god, you have no idea how bad that is here in the USA. Nobody knows how to use language here at all.
2 people like this
@krishnaphani08 (15)
• India
27 Feb 07
hey, i'll explain you the difference between did and done. first we'll discuss did....DID: we should use it for the past tense.
for example: if u already completed your work long time ago....u should say "when did u complete ur work?"
like that u should use DID for past tense.
lets come to DONE: we should use it when the work has just then completed....when we use DONE it should follow with HAVE....that means HAVE DONE,HAS DONE like that....got it?
for example: i completed my work just few minutes ago....then i'll say I HAVE DONE MY WORK....if he/she completed his/her work then we'll say HE/SHE HAS DONE HIS/HER WORK....
its very simple to get understood...just practise it and u'll come to know....
bye bye have a great day ahead
1 person likes this
