HAVE BEEN / HAS BEEN / HAD BEEN - Complete English Grammar Lesson with Examples

[Music] hello everyone and welcome back to english with lucy today i have a grammar lesson for you we are going to be talking about have been has been and had been i have been getting so many questions in my comment section about well had been in particular but also has been and have been in this lesson i'm going to clarify how to use them and when to use them don't forget to complete the quiz at the end of the lesson to test your understanding and share your results in the comments section down below quickly before we get started i would just like to thank the sponsor of today's video it's italki if you haven't heard of italki before it's a huge online database of both native and non-native teachers who give one-to-one video lessons 24 hours a day seven days a week you can learn english and over 130 other languages from anywhere in the world as long as you have a stable internet connection it's an incredibly affordable way of learning a language much cheaper than an offline tutor or language academy so many people message me and ask me how they can find and speak with native speakers italki is an incredible option because they have both qualified teachers and community teachers who will practice conversation with you they've given me a special offer to pass on to you you can get ten dollars worth of italki credits in your student wallet 48 hours after making your first purchase of any amount that could be a free lesson just click on the link in the description box to sign up right let's get started with the lesson firstly let's talk about the basics let's start with the present i you we they and plural nouns go with have been i have been they have been the dogs have been the children have been he she it singular nouns and uncountable nouns go with has been she has been it has been the cat has been the water has been the past is much easier all of the subjects can go with had been i had been she had been the people had been it had been now let's talk with the first and easiest use of have been has been and had been this might be the easiest but it's where a lot of my students get confused and make mistakes we use have been has been and had been when talking about travel experience for example we have been to seville many times this means we have visited seville many times note that it's been to but just visited without two that's another common mistake another example i've been to italy three times i've visited italy three times i've reduced have to just apostrophe ve i've we can also use it as a question for example have you been to mexico yes i've been to mexico or no i haven't been to mexico please note that we can't talk about specific times i have been to mexico last year is wrong we're talking about general experience life experience not specific times now we will talk about had been a little bit more in the next section but just to give a general overview you can use had been when talking about travel experience we used had been when talking about two events in the past for example when i visited milan last year i had never been to italy before there are two past tense verbs here i visited in the simple past and i had never been both happened in the past and it means up until the point last year when i went to milan for the first time before that i had never visited italy we'll talk more about this in the next section let's discuss the second use of these forms actions or situations that started in the past and are still continuing now for example i have been studying english for three years or i have been studying english since 2016. when we use four we're talking about the duration or the amount of time for six years for two months when we say since we are talking about the starting point 2016 was my starting point for studying english so with studying english i started in 2016 and i have continued for three years until the present day another example william has been watching tv since midday or william has been watching tv for four hours presuming it's four in the afternoon now we don't always want to talk about a specific action we might just want to talk about a situation without focusing on that specific action for example he has been a cleaner for 11 months he has been a cleaner since january or we've been together for two and a half years we've been together since 2017. now let's take a deeper look into had been i'm going to take the sentences that we used to learn have been and has been and show you how they're used with had been and we'll see how the meaning changes so let's take i have been studying english for three years let's look at the first example i had been studying english for three years when i left the school i started studying english at a specific point in the past three years ago i continued studying for three years and then i left the school it ended it finished i stopped studying english very sad never stop in the present i no longer study english there are two past actions here one continuous past action i had been studying english and a single finished action at the end i left compare this to the previous sentence i have been studying english for three years here there is only one continuous action it hasn't finished it's continuing in the present only use had been if there are two actions in the past one continuous action and one single finished action let's have a look at the other example sentences and change them to had been william had been watching tv for four hours when he stopped to do some housework the continuous action had been watching and the single finished action stopped he stopped he had been a cleaner for 11 months when he quit his job the continuous action he had been and the single finished action he quit and the last one a sad one we had been together for two and a half years when we broke up the continuous action we had been and the single finished action we broke up now let's move on to the third and final use of have been has been and had been we use them in the passive voice now i use the website ebay a lot i don't like to bid on things i like to submit offers and i receive a lot of emails telling me your offer has been accepted your offer has been accepted this sentence is in the passive voice in the active voice it would be the seller has accepted your offer ebay uses the passive voice because the seller isn't important in this situation what's important is my offer so the focus of the sentence is on the offer another example a postal company might say your parcels have been delivered to a neighbor that's the passive voice in the active voice they would say we have delivered your parcels to a neighbor using the passive voice is a great technique for companies and politicians who want to remove any responsibility from a situation a politician might say mistakes have been made instead of i have made mistakes the active voice focuses too much on them when the passive voice removes them from the situation so how do we use had been in the passive voice admittedly it's not so common this is quite advanced but it's important that you know it because i'm sure you will hear it we use had been in the passive voice if this is a recurring theme there are two actions in the past for example the marketing campaign had just been launched when the agency shut down both of the events or actions were in the past the first event that occurred is indicated with had been so the campaign was launched first after that the agency shut down the second event uses just a simple past tense let's look at another example the plane had been waiting for fuel when the pilot noticed a problem again two events in the past the first event that occurred is had been and the second event uses a simple past tense noticed right those are the uses for have been has been and had been now it's time for you to do a quiz i'm going to give you five questions with enough time to think about each one share your answers in the comments section down below and i'll see how many i can correct if i don't get to you please help each other out and correct each other this is a gap-fill exercise sentence number one you to germany before sentence number two she waiting for the doctor since 9 00 am sentence number three a gang arrested on suspicion of various crimes sentence number four he searching for a job for three months when he got invited for an interview sentence number five your letters delayed in the post and number six when police arrived at the scene the evidence destroyed right share your answers in the comment section down below don't forget to check out italki you can get ten dollars worth of italki credits for free in your student wallet 48 hours after making your first purchase of any amount just click on the link in the description box to sign up don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media i've got my facebook my instagram and my twitter and i shall see you soon for another lesson [Music] [Music] you

Channel: English with Lucy

Views: 3,273,578

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Keywords: have been has been had been, have been has been had been use in english, have been, has been, had been, had been english, have been english grammar, complete english grammar, grammar lesson, english grammar lesson, english with lucy

Id: B1ed-pfqdZg

Length: 14min 11sec (851 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 20 2019