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August 2008 In this Issue
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Grammar Spot : Just + Present Perfect 
You probably know the Stevie Wonder song which has the lyrics:
Well, thanks to Stevie Wonder we can have a look at one of those little grammatical twists that are sent to annoy us all but especially those who are trying to learn how English works. Let's look at a couple of sentences with 'just' in them:
The adverb of time, 'just' + verb, indicates that an action is in the very recent past and is completed so why don't we always use the Simple Past (as Stevie Wonder does in the song). Well, you can use the Simple Past here and it would not be wrong. What complicates it is that using 'just' with the Present Perfect to talk about a complete, recent past action is also correct. We often use it with the Present Perfect when there is result in the present or future of the past action (as in the examples above). But we are talking about fairly fine distinctions here and I would say that Stevie Wonder's grammar is spot on in this part of the song! Just to keep you thinking - 'just' can also be used to mean ' the only reason'. For example, 'I just called to say I love you' could also mean ' the only reason I called was to say I love you'. I'll leave you with that until next time!
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Readers' Questions : Would and Could
This month's question was sent in by Mahesh, an English4Today member from India : Mahesh asks, 'What is the difference between ‘would’ and ‘could’?' This is a very common question and there seems to be a lot of confusion about what the difference is exactly between ‘would’ and ‘could’. As with a lot of questions sent in by advanced English learners, this question is really about pointing out fairly fine distinctions in usage and special cases (such as 'would like') where only one choice is possible. Because this month's answer is a bit too long for the newsletter we've posted a comprehensive answer to Mahesh's question on the Grammar FAQ with sound file and examples.
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