I was gone / I has gone
 

Hi! What is the difference between "I was gone" and "I had gone"? ("I was gone" sounds me (or sounds to me??) better)

My first instinct is to say that "I was gone" isn't really a proper phrase. "I went" is more grammatically correct and holds essentially the same meaning.

Since the first phrase is incorrect English grammar, "I had gone" is the preferable phrase to use depending on sentence context.

Isn't the phrase "I was gone" the correct one?

I am gone (Present tense), I was gone (Past tense), I will be gone (Future tense).

I think a key point here would be what you are trying to say.

"I was gone" and "I had gone" are both correct - they just have different meanings. One will be correct for one situation, one for another. I wouldn`t use them interchangeably.

Guh. That's what I was trying to clumsily explain. Without context, they're difficult to analyze.

I had gone is past perfect
I have gone is present perfect
but "I was gone" what tense is it?

"Gone" is the past participle of the verb "go", it is also an adjective.

The adjective "gone" has a couple of meanings. I can't list all of them here, so it will be great if you can look up from the dictionary yourself. ;) Some of the meanings are: dead, pregnant, ended, past, missing, used up... etc

So, does "I am gone" sound grammatically correct to you now? If "gone" is an adjective, "be gone" is surely correct.

So I can't say "I was gone to Rome", because here gone is not an adjective, but I should say "I had gone to Rome". Is it right?

If you want to express "I go to Rome", you have to use it as a verb; therefore you should say "I have gone to Rome" but not "I was gone to Rome".

Just a little bit more information for you: If you want to express the fact that you have visited Rome, you should say "I have been to Rome" instead. ;)

EDIT: I just noticed that the title of this thread is "I was gone/I has gone". "I has gone" is incorrect; it should be "I have gone". "Has" is used for third person singular (he has / she has/ it has).

Yeah there are many ways in which you could refer to it depending on the context.

When speaking about something you 'have' done in the past:
I went to Rome
I have been to Rome

When speaking about something you 'will' do in the future:
I am going to Rome
I will go to Rome

When speaking about something you 'were' going to do, but didn't:
I was going to go to Rome



'has' wouldn't fit in anywhere unless you were referring to somebody other than yourself.
She has been to Rome (for example).


I don't think 'gone' would be used either. It would be changed to been, went, going etc.
But you could also use 'gone' when referring to another person again. Maybe speaking about someone who has went to Rome and you have not.
'She has gone to Rome'
This would mean they are still in Rome.

English can be quite complicated when it comes to these subtle changes.

I am not specialist on this but i would describe it as this:

example: Maria came to see me, but I was gone.
I believe that "I was gone" is passive voice of simple past tense
see this page: Learn English - Passive Voice

we can look at it as association of status/condition, so my status when Maria came to see me, was "gone", i know it is a verb as word, but look at it as my condition, so rather as adjective associated with me.

example: Maria came to see me, but I had gone.
this is past perfect tense
so this time look at it as on full verb construct consisting of inseparable components of "had" and "gone", which together makes a single verb of specific tense. And this verb expresses my activity in past... which is i have got to other place even before when Maria came to see me.

what is better to use? I believe (although i might be wrong), both ways have same meaning in result, but first is focused on expressing someone's status which would anyway be a result of such activity which expresses a second example ;) so the second one is focused on describing of activity which happened before the first part of sentence (or the context generally).

Yes.. typing error :o I meant had, not has

Why do you say "who has went"? Shouldn't you use the past participle of go which is gone?

That's probably a typo, and they meant "gone", not "went".

It wasn't a typo as such, more a mistake of typing my dialect rather than the correct way of writing it. (i sometimes do this by mistake).

That's how i would say it if i spoke about it. But should have wrote 'gone'.

See, this is where languages get confusing for people. Even i made errors because the way i write and the way i speak are often quite different.


:cool:

Ok.. I think I have understood!! (is this the right tense or should I say "I think I understood"?)
Just one more thing: in the first post I wrote " 'I was gone' sounds to me"...but when a native speaks, does he says "sounds to me" or "sounds me" or both?

The expression is "I think I understand".

"Sounds to me" is the correct phrase to use in that context. :)

"who has went" would be a dialect form that a small number of English speakers from particular regions use. It's not standard and to most English speakers sounds like an error.

I don't think you need to worry about this too much- I honestly can't think of very many situations where I would use "I was gone"- about the only one would be to mean "I had left", but even then I probably wouldn't use it. Even "I had gone" is not used that often by most people. "I had been" would be much more common. We are more likely to use "gone" when talking about other people, since it means leave and not come back.

I understand!
Thanks to all :)