Hello, I've always struggled with tenses and am curious about these two sentences:

My TARGETED approach resulted in helping a friend who IS confident traveling alone.

My TARGETED approach resulted in helping a friend who WAS confident traveling alone.

Question: Do I have to change "IS" to past tense? My logic is that even though the action was done in the past ("targeted approach") the characteristics of the friend didn't change. The friend is still confident.

So if it becomes "was confident" wouldn't that imply the friend was confident in the past but no longer confident in the present?

Thank you

Question

Hello, I've always struggled with tenses and am curious about these two sentences:

My TARGETED approach resulted in helping a friend who IS confident traveling alone.

My TARGETED approach resulted in helping a friend who WAS confident traveling alone.

Question: Do I have to change "IS" to past tense? My logic is that even though the action was done in the past ("targeted approach") the characteristics of the friend didn't change. The friend is still confident.

So if it becomes "was confident" wouldn't that imply the friend was confident in the past but no longer confident in the present?

Thank you

Answer

Neither make sense. From context it seems like you helped someone to become confident enough to travel alone.

My approach helped a friend become confident enough to travel alone.

My approach help a friend become confident traveling alone.

My approach resulted in my friend being confident traveling alone.

My approach resulted in my friend being confident enough to travel alone.

Answer

I want to learn English from you

Answer

Both are ok, although “was” is probably better. The main problem is that the sentence doesn’t make much sense. If they were confident with travelling alone, what were you helping them with?

Answer

both are correct. for me the "was" example has a slightly more "story telling" tone of voice to it.

Answer

You can say it either way. Your reasoning is sound.  However, saying "was confident" does NOT imply that the friend is no longer confident.