爱华网
A question from AbdallaSalih:
Which is correct: 'Let's go home' or 'It's high time we went home',and why do you use the past tense of 'go' here?
Callum Robertson answers:
This is a very interesting question, which is correct - "It's hightime we went ", or "Let's go"? The first thing to say is that theyare both grammatically correct; they are both examples of accurateEnglish. This is often true in English that there are differentways to say more or less the same thing. Which one you use willdepend on the situation, who you are talking to and sometimes theway you like to sound, your own style of speaking.
Let's look at each of these in a little more detail and describe asituation when they could be used.
First, the structure "let's" - which is the common short form for"Let us". This is followed by the infinitive of a verb without "to"and is usually an informal suggestion. When it's a suggestion it isoften followed by the tag, "shall we?"
Imagine that you are at a party, it's quite late at night, you aretired and you have to go to work the next day. You are theretogether with a friend and because it's late you want to go home.You might say to your friend something like, "Let's go, shall we?"You want to leave and you want your friend to come with you. "Let'sgo, shall we?" It's not really an order to do something but apolite way of suggesting that you want to leave.
If you just say, "Let's go!" that is more of a polite instructionand suggests that you have made the decision that it's time toleave and you expect the person you are talking to do what you say.It could be a parent talking to his or her children - "Come onkids, let's go." However often there is no real difference between"let's go" and "let's go, shall we?" It really does depend on yourtone of voice and the relationship you have with the person you'respeaking to.
Now, the other phrase from Abdallah's question was, "It's high timewe went". This is quite an unusual structure because it has whatlooks like a simple past form - "went", the past of the verb "togo." - "It's high time we went." - What is unusual about this isthat this sentence is not talking about the past at all! There area number of phrases, all using the word "time" where thishappens.
We have the example - "It's high time we went", but you could alsosay:
- It's time we went, or
- It's about time we went
and you can use a continuous form as well:
- It's time we were going
- It's about time we were going, and
- It's high time we were going
The past form in these examples is, I think, the subjunctive formof the verb. The subjunctive is often used when we talk aboutunreal or imagined situations. You can see it clearly in aconditional sentence like this one:
"If I were you, I'd change my job"
Normally you wouldn't expect to see the form "were" following thepronoun "I". You expect "I" to be followed by "was". But that isonly true if the verb form is the past simple. However "I were" asin "If I were you" is the correct form of the past subjunctivewhich is used here because obviously I am not you and I can't beyou - so it's an imagined or unreal situation - "If I were you."And that's the same form that's being used in the expressions afterthe word 'time'
However, to be honest, I wouldn't worry about trying to rememberthis or trying to work out if a sentence is subjunctive ornot.
You can remember the time expressions I mentioned above as fixedexpressions and they all have more or less the same meaning. Theyare quite formal in their use and are stating that it's time thatsomething happened. A parent might say to a child, for example -"it's time you went to bed!" Which means "I want you to go tobed".
In the party situation you could say, as I mentioned above, "let'sgo!" - but you could also say - "It's time we went." You canimagine the person who said that might be looking at their watchand worrying perhaps about catching a train.
And if the situation is a little more urgent, we use the expression"It's high time" which means it's very important that this happensnow - "It's high time we left - come on or we'll miss the train."Or again a parent might say to an older child - "It's high time youfound a job, young man!"
So in summary -
"Let's go" is an informal suggestion or a polite instruction-
"It's high time" - is a formal statement that it is important thatsomething happen soon or that something happen now.
And now - it's about time I finished thisanswer.
