Grammar related question [closed]

she ____ in many counties, so she knows lots of languages.

(lived - has lived - had lived)

which one's correct & why?

Regards.

and welcome.

This is a difficult question, because it's unclear that any of the possible answers would be wrong. But there is one most likely answer, and this is my reasoning:

The second part of the sentence is in present tense ("knows"). Therefore, we can assume the woman being described is still alive.

"Had lived" (past perfect tense) implies an action that started and ended in the past. Taken to the extreme, that implies that the woman's life ended in the past, and that would be inconsistent with the present tense "knows."

The same could be said of the simple past tense, "she lived."

So, I favor the present-perfect tense. It implies past action with present consequences, as others (see link below) have described it. She has lived in many countries, so she knows a lot of languages" (and has since moved here with her knowledge, perhaps). One change that would make it certain that she is still alive is to use "has been living"

There are surely more academic ways of explaining this, but also, to my ear, "has lived" is the best choice.

By the way, some would quibble with not using "and" between those clauses, and with using the informal "a lot of languages" rather than "many languages."

See this answer also: When to use has lived...