Learn English – past-tense equivalent of the word “current”

word-request

What would be the right equivalent for "current" when I speak in terms of the past?

For example, this sentence sounds okay to me:

These days, increasing her listening comprehension is all she needs to
do at her current stage of learning French.

but when I put it into past, something just doesn't sit right with the usage of "current":

In those days, increasing her listening comprehension was all
she needed to do at her current stage of learning French.

Is my apprehension here correct? It looks to me that the word "current" has an invisible, yet quite a strong connection to the time of speaking and, thus, cannot be easily used in the past.

Best Answer

"Current" (or "present") is not necessarily wrong in that context, as the reader will understand you mean "current at that time". However, to avoid confusion, there are a couple of other expressions you can use. You may have to rewrite the sentences to make them fit better:

at the/that time: Based on her level of French proficiency at the time, all she needed was to increase her listening comprehension skills.

existing: *At her existing level of French proficiency, all she needed was to increase her listening comprehension skills.

There are other possible expressions that have other nuanced meanings, such as "concurrent" or "throughout", but these may not fit what you are trying to say.

(Edit) As Accumulation points out, you don't really need to use "current" at all. It's redundant since you already use "In those days". Your sentence is also somewhat awkwardly phrased. It might sound better if you reorganize the sentence:

In those days, she felt her French proficiency was good enough that all she needed to do was increase her listening comprehension.

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