Barry
Is/was your job done/finished? Are the following sentences all correct? Which tense should I use? I know that the job was finished in the past, so I should use the simple past tense. However, the simple present tense can be used to express a FACT, which makes me hesitate on the use of tense. Is/Was your job done (by you)? Is/Was your job finished (by you)? Do/Did you do your job? Do/Did you finish your job? Thanks!
Mar 6, 2017 11:08 AM
Answers · 5
Hi, As you mentioned, your job was completed in the past. At the moment, it is still a fact that the job is done. Hence, we can use present perfect tense. Have you done your job? Have you completed your job ? Your first two suggestions below: Is/Was your job done (by you)? Is/Was your job finished (by you)? The meaning of your sentences are different. You are trying to ask who is or was the person who completed the job. Your last two suggestions: Did you do your job? Did you finish your job? The emphasis is on whether the job is completed or not completed. Do you do your job? Do you finish your job? The emphasis is on whether you have a tendency to complete your job or not. It would be a question to ask to know someone's attitude towards their job. Hope this helps. Cheers, Lance
March 6, 2017
Is your job done? This is correct and is present tense. The job is currently complete. Was your job done? This is correct and is past tense. The job could have been done two days ago and need doing again. Do you do your job? This is present tense but sounds a bit odd as I'd expect it to be "Are you doing your job?" but it could refer to an ongoing job and you could be asking if you regularly do that job. Did you do your job? This is fine and it's the same as "Was your job done by you?" Do you finish your job? This one doesn't really make sense. The closes I can think of would be "Do you finish your jobs?" but then it could relate to any job you ever do and not a particular job. Did you finish your job? This is the same as "Did you do your job?" but adds an element of completion
March 6, 2017
As always, context is the key to knowing what you should say. In general, it is better and more natural to use the present perfect tense if you are asking somebody whether they have (recently) completed a piece of work. For example, if you are the boss of a company and have hired somebody to do a particular piece of work, you would ring them up and say: "Have you finished the work, yet?" You could say "Did you finish the work yet?" but that's less natural. You could also ring him up and say "Is the work finished now?" In this situation you shouldn't use the simple past tense of the verb "to be," unless you are going to put in a word that specifically refers to the past: So you should not say "Was the work finished?" without referring to a period of time that is in the past - for example "yesterday, last week etc" So you could say "Was the work finished yesterday?" but it would be more natural to say "Did you finish the work yesterday?" Note: in all of the uses above, it would be far more common to say "the work," rather than "your work."
March 6, 2017
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