Learn English – What tense should be used when present/past perfect is used

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Here is my sentence of which I am having some troubles ascertaining the grammatical correctness:

I think that Rachel has told Brady that Bert would admit to the judge what he has taught about evolution was a fraud.

First, because I am talking about the content of a book, I use present perfect. however, I am not too sure when to use past perfect, with words such as "taught", and "told".

Second, I use "would" instead of will because Rachel's action of telling technically already happened (even though I am using present participle).

Third and lastly, I used "was" for the same reason I did for the second one.

Best Answer

Keep in mind, what these tenses are. Unfortunately, these tenses are rather confusingly named, for learners:

"present perfect" : describes an event in the past. Formed with the present of "to have" + past participle of verb. ex: "I have seen the movie".

"past perfect" : describes an event further in the past. Formed with the past of "to have" + past participle of verb. ex: "I had (already) seen the movie, when my sister called me".

So, in your example:

"...what he has taught..." (present perfect) -- implies that he has been teaching something, in the past; that is, sometime before now. Maybe he still is, maybe he isn't.

"...what he had taught..." (past perfect) -- implies that he taught something in the more distant past, and probably stopped teaching it some time ago.

"...what he taught..." (simple past) -- also works. very similar meaning to using the present perfect; sounds to a native ear like the teaching has probably stopped.

All three possibilities are correct, but they convey a slightly different picture of what's going on.

In your second question: your reasoning about using "would" is correct.

In your third question, "was" or "is" both would work fine. "Was" shows that it was wrong (in the past); "is" would show that it is considered wrong (now). Both convey the wrongness of the teaching.

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