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Since we have been here, it has always been raining at nights, daylights have been sunny and I expect it will continue like that.

This sentence means that up to now only the nights have been rainy but imagine that before saying this sentence, I heard the weather broadcast announcing that the weather was going to change : "the rain will fall both at nights and daylights tomorrow"said the weather man, could I change my sentence and say:

"It has only rained at nights for 3 days but the weather is going to change tomorrow, it will be raining all day."

Can I, in that case used ppsimple as the action of raining at nights has been completed.

2 Answers 2

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You can use the present perfect (which isn't simple; a verb is only simple if it's neither progressive nor perfect) whether or not it is finished, in this case. "It has always rained at night" is fine, whether or not it's going to rain tomorrow night. "It has never rained during the day" is fine, whether or not it's going to rain tomorrow.

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  • but if my sentence was "since we have been here , it has been raining at night only ", could I use the progressive form and in my first example is the progressive form idiomatic if not why
    – Yves Lefol
    Apr 8, 2019 at 17:20
  • @user5577 The verb form is fine, it's the rest of the sentence that's unnatural. Really, just the word order. "Since we have been here, it has only been raining at night", or "since we have been here, it has only rained at night", both are fine. Either of them could be followed by, "but tomorrow it will rain all day", or anything along those lines.
    – SamBC
    Apr 8, 2019 at 17:25
  • i should write it has only been raining at night since we have been here
    – Yves Lefol
    Apr 8, 2019 at 17:28
  • In this case, the most natural way to do it, in that case, is for the adverb to be before before the to be, and the complement of the adverb after the verb raining, yes. When you should put which part where is something you just have to learn to experience.
    – SamBC
    Apr 8, 2019 at 17:33
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You can use present perfect simple in both cases. In both cases, it is implied that the raining was done in the past and is not continuing now. Even if it continues to rain every night, in the sentence, only the past rain is referred to.

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