Hi everyone, which sentence is more natural? and why???

"At 8 o'clock last night was doing my homework"  or " At 8 o'clock last night I did my homework."?

Thanks

4 Answers

0vote

Generally, both are natural !!
But, you can use the first sentence if you talk about a lot of thing you did (in the past), and the second sentence if you talk about one thing you did (in the past too) ..

0vote

The first one is more natural if you are referring to an action that was in progress at 8 o'clock. But it is not possible to omit the subject in English, pronoun "I" in this case.

If you are referring to an action that was concluded before 8 o'clock, you should use Past Perfect and a different preposition, "by 8 o'clock" in this case.

E.g.: I had finished my homework by 8 o'clock last night.

Both sentences are syntactically incorrect, i.e. the word order is not respected. 

You have two options: 1) to use a comma for emphasis: At 8 o'clock last night, I was doing my homework; 2) to put the whole adverbial phrase after the object: I was doing my homework at 8 o'clock last night.

 

0vote

Neither sentence sounds natural.

i would change them to ...

I did my homework yesterday at 8 o'clock - to indicate a finished action.   (Someone asks you: When did you do your homework?)

OR

I was doing my homework yesterday at 8 o'clock - to indicate action in progress (someone asks you: what were you doing yesterday at 8?)

0vote

i think the first tenes is more fit . because in this case, the act were not done, they still continuous . and if you talk a act were done then you use past present .

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