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Hi guys! Dan for BBC Learning English here with this week's Learner Question. Find out
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what it is after this.
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OK! This week's learner question comes from Abdalla in Egypt, who asked, 'which is correct:
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let's go home or it's high time we went home, and why do you use the past tense of 'go'
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here?'
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It's a good observation, Abdalla, and a good question. Well, both of these sentences
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are correct in their grammar and their meaning, but they're different.
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Let's is let us. And it's followed by the bare infinitive, which is a verb without
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to. Unlike the verb let, which means 'give someone permission'. Let us is used as a gentle
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suggestion. For example, let's go to the cinema, or, let's not
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have Chinese for dinner tonight.
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It's often combined with the question tag…shall we? For example, let's go to the cinema,
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shall we?
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It can be used as a gentle imperative, or command to do something but it really depends
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on who is talking to who, and the context and their tone of voice. For example, two
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friends might say to each other: Let's go to the cinema, shall we? That's a suggestion.
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But a parent might say to a child: Let's be quiet, shall we? That's not a suggestion.
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The other phrase you asked about is it's high time we went home. And this is a subjunctive,
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that's why we use the past form of the verb and not a different form. It means it's
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a kind of unreal situation like a conditional. For example, it's high time we ate something!
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We use this structure to mean that something should have already happened by now. And it's
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often used to show irritation – again like a parent to a child, who might say: it's
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high time you cleaned your room! I'm sure you've heard that one, haven't you? This
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means I want you to clean your room.
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I hope that answers your question Abdalla. Thank you very much for writing to us. If
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anybody else out there has a question for Learners' Questions, you can email us on:
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learning.english@bbc.co.uk. Please remember to put Learners' Questions in the subject
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box and include your name and the country that you're writing from. We can't answer
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every single question, guys. We just get too many, but we do read all of them. And for
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more information, go to our website: bbclearningenglish.com. That's it for this week's Learners'
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Questions. I'll see you next time. Bye.
