Name: Let's」と「It's high time」-学習者の質問 ('Let's' and 'it's high time' - Learners' Questions)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T11:06:08.000Z
Duration: 2 min 38 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

Hi guys! Dan for BBC Learning English here with this week's Learner Question. Find out

過去形

OK! This week's learner question comes from Abdalla in Egypt, who asked, 'which is correct:

let's go home or it's high time we went home, and why do you use the past tense of 'go'

It's a good observation, Abdalla, and a good question. Well, both of these sentences

are correct in their grammar and their meaning, but they're different.

Let's is let us. And it's followed by the bare infinitive, which is a verb without

to. Unlike the verb let, which means 'give someone permission'. Let us is used as a gentle

suggestion. For example, let's go to the cinema, or, let's not

It's often combined with the question tag…shall we? For example, let's go to the cinema,

It can be used as a gentle imperative, or command to do something but it really depends

on who is talking to who, and the context and their tone of voice. For example, two

friends might say to each other: Let's go to the cinema, shall we? That's a suggestion.

But a parent might say to a child: Let's be quiet, shall we? That's not a suggestion.

The other phrase you asked about is it's high time we went home. And this is a subjunctive,

that's why we use the past form of the verb and not a different form. It means it's

a kind of unreal situation like a conditional. For example, it's high time we ate something!

We use this structure to mean that something should have already happened by now. And it's

often used to show irritation – again like a parent to a child, who might say: it's

high time you cleaned your room! I'm sure you've heard that one, haven't you? This

I hope that answers your question Abdalla. Thank you very much for writing to us. If

anybody else out there has a question for Learners' Questions, you can email us on:

learning.english@bbc.co.uk. Please remember to put Learners' Questions in the subject

box and include your name and the country that you're writing from. We can't answer

every single question, guys. We just get too many, but we do read all of them. And for

more information, go to our website: bbclearningenglish.com. That's it for this week's Learners'