Sublet past tense
Meaning of sublet
to lease (a rented property) to another person.
Infinitive
- 1. They sublet their apartment every summer when they travel.
- 2. She prefers to sublet her spare room rather than leave it empty.
- 3. If you can't commit to a full lease, you can always try to sublet from someone for a shorter period.
Past Simple
- 1. Last year, I sublet my apartment to a friend for the summer while I traveled through Europe.
- 2. They sublet their office space to a startup company to help cover the rent.
- 3. We sublet a room in our house to a college student during the semester.
Past Participle
- 1. The apartment has been sublet to a young couple until the end of the year.
- 2. By the time we arrived, the house had been sublet to someone else.
- 3. The cozy studio downtown was sublet by them for the entire summer.
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Bare infinitive
- General Fact or StateExample. She sublets her apartment every summer.Example. He always sublets a room to help cover his rent.
- Habitual ActionExample. She sublets her apartment every summer.Example. He always sublets a room to help cover his rent.
Past Simple
- Completed Action in the PastExample. Last year, they sublet their house while traveling abroad.Example. She sublet her spare room every semester when she was in college.
- Past HabitExample. Last year, they sublet their house while traveling abroad.Example. She sublet her spare room every semester when she was in college.
Past Participle
- Perfect Tenses (Present Perfect)Example. They have sublet their apartment twice this year.Example. Before moving to the city, they had never sublet their home.Example. The studio was sublet to a local artist for two months.
- Perfect Tenses (Past Perfect)Example. They have sublet their apartment twice this year.Example. Before moving to the city, they had never sublet their home.Example. The studio was sublet to a local artist for two months.
- Passive VoiceExample. They have sublet their apartment twice this year.Example. Before moving to the city, they had never sublet their home.Example. The studio was sublet to a local artist for two months.
Common mistakes
— 01
Confusing forms
A common mistake is confusing the past simple form of a verb with its past participle form. For verbs that don't follow the regular -ed ending for their past forms, this mistake becomes more evident. For example, the verb 'sublet' has the past simple form 'sublet' and the past participle form 'sublet' as well. Since both forms are identical in this case, learners might mistakenly think this rule applies to all verbs, leading to errors with irregular verbs that have distinct past simple and past participle forms.
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Use in Perfect Tenses
Another mistake involves the incorrect use of the past participle form in perfect tenses. The past participle form 'sublet' should be used with auxiliary verbs to construct perfect tenses (e.g., 'I have sublet my apartment'). However, learners often mistakenly use the past simple form in place of the past participle when constructing present perfect, past perfect, or future perfect tenses, leading to grammatically incorrect sentences.
— 03
Misapplication in Passive
For the verb 'sublet,' the correct construction for a passive sentence would be 'The apartment was sublet to a new tenant.' A common mistake is to use the past simple form in such constructions, resulting in incorrect sentences like 'The apartment was sublet to a new tenant,' which, in this rare case, happens to be correct due to the identical nature of the past simple and past participle forms of 'sublet.' However, applying this error to verbs with different past simple and past participle forms would lead to inaccuracies.
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