How to use "for," "since," and "ago" in English (present perfect tense)

and in this week's live lesson we are going to talk about how to use for since and ago i'm going to talk about a few details of these words and i'm also going to talk about the grammar points that we typically use these words in so i hope that beginners can get some new information of course and i also hope i've chosen some information that will help kind of deepen your knowledge of how to use these words so should be a good one for everyone so as you join please please please make sure to hit the like button and of course share this video as well it will help other people to find today's lesson that would be super super cool while we wait for people to join us live as always a few quick announcements the first announcement is about this banner at the bottom of the screen where you can find if you click the link below the video on youtube or above the video on facebook you will find free downloadable pdfs so you can practice uh vocabulary and phrases pick up some new things uh choose whatever you like this one it says it's about romance and love but on the back you will find compliments you can use so you can find all of these from the link below or above the video there are a bunch of new ones too so check it out if you haven't looked recently yeah you can find uh some new stuff there okay that's announcement number one announcement number two is if you have questions for me if you have questions you want to ask me about grammar vocabulary culture other small points whatever you can send those questions to me for our question and answer series this is a very old screenshot called ask alicia so the link for that is at englishclass101.com ask hyphen alicia there is also a link in the youtube description too you can check that out and if you want to follow me on social media you can find links for that in the youtube description you can just search for this username okay that's all for our announcements i think everything is rolling facebook i see you hi facebook pesh and yusef and suzama hello and hi from someone with a thai name can't read it sorry hi raquel and stella welcome everybody and on youtube hi everyone uh random shares from pakistan hi noeli who bear hello baldwin jose farushi i feel like there are many new names today that's super cool welcome everybody okay let's look at today's lesson topic uh which is how to use or since and ago also if you're just joining please make sure to like and share this video it helps other people find the lesson i'm going to do that and then i'm going to share the video but um cool done okay so uh let's get into today's topic then i'm going to show you today's lesson boards okay so here is what we are going to look at today today we're going to look at four since and ago so i chose some key uses uh so for for instance there are some other uses but i wanted to focus on these and we'll talk about a go last so in today's lesson in today's lesson if you want to try to make an example sentence with the focus point in that moment go for it i will try to check your sentences live in the chat if you are joining live so let's get started let's start with four let's talk about how to use four i chose three uses for today's lesson so let's begin with this first one using four to show purpose to show purpose so for example i need this for my homework right so i need some object for the purpose of like in order to four is used before the noun here so this pattern uses four plus a noun phrase noun renowned phrase in this case for my homework i need this for my homework or i need this for my job or i need this for my hobby yeah we show purpose with four another example you should try this for lunch you should try this for lunch it's like saying you should try this in order to have lunch this should be your lunch for the day it's like saying this is the purpose your lunch is the purpose here so you should try this for lunch okay and one more we bought some artwork for our house we bought some artwork for our house so sometimes we use this for it's showing like the purpose of something like when we're giving gifts to people or in this case we're talking about receiving something you can kind of think of it as like that's the the person or in this case the house is the purpose yeah so we bought this like for that person like in order to make that thing or person better or happy is a different way you can think about this okay some examples are coming in awesome cesar says you need that bed for your new house very nice okay um cottonwood says i need your help completing no i need your help for completing this product i need your help we would say to complete to complete uh this project uh i need it for the project okay good uh all right so that's all i see for now so we can use for to show purpose to show purpose okay so this is our first use of four the second use is the one i want to review today this use of four is used to it expresses a length of time and we use this in present perfect tense sentences this is the structure we use here so we use four plus length of time here so let's look at some examples for this one i've lived here for five years i've lived here for five years so in this sentence we see four plus our length of time so four plus length of time key point here make sure you don't forget this s make sure your length of time is plural in these kinds of cases years minutes months weeks i often see people forget this s right here for five years five years okay cool also uh the grammar oh the grammar here i've lived here so this is i have yeah a present perfect structure i have lived here for five years okay all right next example here is we've been talking for an hour we've been talking for an hour so in this sentence you'll notice there's no s at the end because this time period this length of time rather this is singular one hour only so no s at the end so make sure this s is when it is plural you have to use that s at the end okay again this is a present perfect structure we have been talking we have been talking for one hour okay finally he's been stressed out for weeks he's been stressed out for weeks so present perfect structure he has been stressed out four weeks four weeks so weeks just means many weeks we don't know four weeks five weeks six weeks we don't know so we just expressed this with weeks he's been stressed out for weeks so to express this length of time we use for again we use this in present perfect structures okay um some examples are coming in i've been here for a good five minutes as random shares yasir says i am sick for two weeks so make sure you use this pattern i have been sick for two weeks i have been sick for two weeks we used this grammar point to show something that started in the past or continues uh he has learned here for two years nor on facebook let's use the verb study yeah he has studied here for two years um doli says can i say it's me or it's i generally we say it's me in some kind of funny or old-fashioned situations we say it is i okay other questions uh hatis daphne i hope i said your name right says i have been living in the united states for five years so the four is perfect there nice job karina says i've been reading a new book for a week good uh yamileth says i have been living in the united states for three months great uh juan carlos says i have been watching your lessons for nine months cool okay jayan says i've been looking for you for hours good okay a couple people are writing um about uh learning like i have uh learned this for such and such time we use learn the verb learn typically when we finish something we finish our studies of something so instead use the verb study so use learn when you finish it yeah like i learned a new dish i learned how to cook a new dish it's finished yeah or i learned a new skill last summer it's finished because you're still studying english in this case use the verb study yeah okay cool let's go to the last point then for to express value so we see this use of four in shopping and in trading situations yeah so examples you can get 12 cookies for five dollars today you can get 12 cookies for five dollars today so this four shows the cost of the thing so in this pattern we use four plus a noun phrase that expresses it tells us the value or it tells us the cost of something yeah so in this case five dollars is the value of 12 cookies today so we use this to express this value you can get 12 cookies for five dollars today pretty good cookies okay let's go to the next example sentence next we bought three new computers for one thousand dollars we bought three new computers for one thousand dollars so again four comes before the cost the amount the value the worth of these three new computers yeah one more i'll trade this sweater for that scarf i'll trade this sweater for that scarf so this one is a trade yeah not buying something so this sweater for that scarf that scarf is the noun phrase the value yeah so this is an offer sentence right i'll trade this sweater for that scarf we use for to show our value statement our value item okay i'm looking for your examples now will this video be recorded yes every week we record this live video you can watch it again later um i hope i heard your name right said i could get one kilogram of potatoes for ten dollars good so make sure you use that plural form of your noun so one kilo of potatoes yeah don't forget them okay carla says she's bought the car for fifteen thousand dollars okay maybe depending on your sentence she bought not she's bought but she bought the car for fifteen thousand dollars okay uh all right i'm looking for other value statements karina says i'll give you one dollar for that cookie very nice very nice okay good good good good so we can use four to talk about purpose to talk about the length of time with present perfect and to talk about the value of something there are some other uses some other ways to use four but i didn't include them in this lesson maybe in the future this is our topic for today okay so that's part one let's take a short break then we'll go to talking about since in part two uh okay i don't see other questions yet um john nasa sierra leo i hope i said your name right on facebook said i bought a new car for almost two weeks so we can't use a time period here in this one we are expressing value yeah you could say maybe i bought a new car two weeks ago to talk about when you bought the car so that sentence is mixing two things yeah when did you buy the car and the cost of the car two different ideas maybe make two different sentences yeah or i bought the car two weeks ago for two thousand dollars if you want to make one sentence okay let's take a break if you missed it there are free pdf sheets for you to download below the video if you're watching on youtube or above the video if you're watching on facebook check it out there's a link you can find a bunch let's see what should i choose here's one emergency words so these are vocabulary phrases conversation practice cheat sheets you can find a list of useful phrases the sweats for emergencies of course you can find these uh in the youtube description or above the facebook facebook video too these are all free you just need to put your name and your email address into the english class 101.com website and you can download all of these there are a lot our team is adding new ones all the time so check it out if you haven't checked recently go look maybe you'll find something new there uh so i hope that that is helpful for you oh welcome we got a new member on uh youtube hi there i'm thiago hello welcome okay so uh with that said let's get to part two uh time is going quickly if you're just joining please don't forget to hit the like button and share this video so that others can find today's lesson all right let's go to the next one how to use since since so in this uh section i want to talk about uh three uses of synths again there are some others but i want to focus on these for today so again you can send an example sentence and i will try to check live okay first since so we can use since to mark the start of an action or a condition so we use this with present perfect tense again just as we practiced with four also yeah okay so for example i've lived here since 2015. i've lived here since 2015. so in this pattern we mark the start that's the key here the start point with four we talked about the length of time yeah with since we mark the start point of the action okay so i've lived here since 2015. again this is a present perfect structure i've lived here since 2015. okay another example we've been working since 7 a.m we've been working since 7 00 am so 7 am 7 in the morning marks the start of the action yeah this is the start for this action we've been working so this is a continuing action starting at seven a.m and continuing we cannot use four here we've been working four seven a.m is incorrect cannot use it we've been working since seven a.m okay one more he's been stressed out since he got promoted he's been stressed out since he got promoted so here he got promoted i know this is not a year or a time right but this marks a past point in time yeah since he got promoted so the day he got promoted that's the start point for this situation he's been stressed out he's been stressed out so the day he got promoted is the start point for this stressed condition we express that here so we use since to mark the start of an action or the start of a condition all right other questions uh i've been waiting here since 5 pm says sassin do covey very nice okay others uh my cesar says my boss has been working since six am good yeah my boss yeah my boss has been working yeah do you have any lessons about the use of the comma in english lady yes i have some on the english class 101 channel and i have some on my channel as well check that out you can just do a quick search yeah um i have been there since morning says mercy okay cool this looks good malva says i've been teaching mathematics since two months ago good nice one um other ones muhammad saeed afridi says i have been watching this lesson for 10 minutes very close 10 minutes 10 minutes don't forget that s to make it plural okay all right let's go to use number two of synths so we use this i kind of hinted at it here we use this another way to understand this use of since is reference to past time reference to past time what does that mean that means in a conversation we express we share some past action then we want to mention that past action again so what does this look like let's look at some examples what do i mean for example i met my roommate when we were in elementary school i met my roommate when we were in elementary school ben we've been friends since or we've been friends since then so this since refers to we go back to the previous sentence right i met my roommate when we were in elementary school so this is the past point in time elementary school yeah we've been friends since we've been friends since then you might hear both of these it's up to the speaker yeah you can choose what you prefer since or since then so i met my roommate when we were in elementary school we've been friends since then means starting at elementary school until now we have been friends we can use since to do this very very efficiently yeah okay um i hope i said your name right on facebook says i have been watching your channel since last month nice since last month okay uh all right other ones ah oh my gosh i don't see examples i see lots of other topics okay let's go to the next one uh they had an argument last week they haven't spoken since they had an argument last week they haven't spoken since so what happened here's our first sentence they had an argument last week so we have this condition last week then they haven't spoken since so since refers to a past point right here's our past point so they had an argument last week starting at that point they have not spoken so we use since to do this we typically use this at the end of sentences we don't say since they haven't spoken as much we tend to use it at the end of sentences more all right last one for this section he was in a accident when he was young he's been quiet ever since he was in a terrible accident when he was young he's been quiet ever since okay so what is this ever sorry my r is not so clear e v e r that's an r he's been quiet ever since so ever since let me get my marker ever since where is it is like a stronger more kind of emotionally powerful way to say since he's been quiet ever since so again we have this past point the terrible accident when he was young yeah so this is our past point and this is the condition that continued since that time he's been quiet since the accident is another way to say that so ever since is like the strong version the more powerful version of since then so if you want to express kind of more impact with since you can use ever since so this is a very serious situation right so a terrible accident happened that's very serious we expressed that kind of powerful impactful feeling with ever since okay all right um okay i think we should continue to the next one then time's going quickly the last one just two examples we can use since in the same way as because because we show a reason with because right we can use since to do this too let's look at two examples first one we can't start the project this year since we have no money we can't start the project this year since we have no money this sense right here shows the reason for something we can't start the project this year because we have no money is another way to express this sentence so what's the difference between since and because we tend to use because more in everyday speech in everyday conversation and everyday writing since tends to sound a little bit more polite a little bit more formal we can't start the project this year since we have no money one more example of this i decided to take a taxi since i was running late i decided to take a taxi since i was running late so here is our sense we can replace this with because and it makes sense i decided to take a taxi because i was running late so if you're not sure which use of sense is it i don't know you can use because as a test so replace since with because if you have this reason here and because makes sense you have this use of sins so this is one way to test it okay just a quick short tip okay i'm looking for your questions can we use synths between two actions uh can you give me an example i'm not quite sure um what you mean by that one um uh yeah hats i think i just answered which is formal because or since since tends to sound a little bit more formal okay running late oh what does running late mean so i decided to take a taxi since i was running late to run late to run late means in your activities for the day in your daily schedule you are late we use this to mean not to mean physically running we don't mean running but rather my schedule is delayed today so we say i'm running late to mean i am delayed today like my schedule everything is late in my schedule i'm running late we use this a lot this is a really great one okay all right [Music] okay e cain i hope i said your name right e kai says he was expelled from school since he broke the school rules very nice very nice okay okay no hora says he couldn't go since he couldn't get the money okay cool very nice very nice all right let's go to the last part then because i am late i'm running late as always i liked i liked talking about all the details of these let's talk about the last point the last point is very short if you're tired so a go a go let's talk about using a go a go is used to refer to a past point in time but key point we use a go a lot with simple past sentences so in today's lesson we talked about for and since with present perfect sentences for example i have lived here for five years and i've lived here since 2015 right so those are present perfect sentences we use a go with simple past sentences okay for example we moved here a year ago we moved here a year ago or one year ago also okay two years so we moved here a year ago this ago means this period of time before it's like saying this this period of time was the point at which this happened yeah so it's like you go back this amount of time okay we moved here one year ago or we moved here a year ago we go back that that amount of time that length of time that's the point for this action we moved here a year ago so we cannot say we moved here since a year no or we moved here for a year that doesn't make sense either we moved here a year ago this sentence uses simple past tense okay let's look at another one so this is two sentences so remember our crazy vacation remember our crazy vacation that was such a long time ago that was such a long time ago this such a long time ago or a long time ago i wanted to introduce in this lesson excuse me so such a long time ago means that was very very far in the past we use this expression a lot we don't say that was far in the past we do not say that we say this that was such a long time ago or that was a long time ago or that was a really long time ago so use this long time ago you will probably see this at the beginning of stories too in movies and books and so on a long time ago okay um all right uh hijlatif wrote we moved here since last year so i just mentioned this we cannot use that sentence we moved here a year ago we moved here a year ago we can say uh we've lived here since last year we cannot use since in this sentence we moved here since last year we cannot say that okay uh let's go to the last uh the last example she arrived at the office about three hours ago she arrived at the office about three hours ago so three hours ago we go back three hours that's the time she arrived so we mark the point of the action here she arrived at the office about three hours ago okay some examples are coming uh nahara says i moved here seven years ago perfect good good good um other ones i graduate uh on hua lim i hope i said your name right oh where'd you come and go i graduated with a bachelor's degree i i graduated with like like holding a bachelor's degree 26 years ago yeah then it's perfect okay others uh karina says they got married three years ago el turco says buy yourself a board woman i don't have space in my house for one i'm broadcasting from my house okay um you went to canada two years ago says cesar very nice okay good nice ones everybody oh cole pang says my birthday was 10 months ago okay um gelit i moved here a year ago is that correct yes moved here a year ago you just changed the subject right yeah so it's fine okay let's go to the last last last part a go and sense is the length of time with a present perfect structure so i want to include this some guides say this grammar is not standard but many native speakers use this pattern so i want to introduce it so this is using since and a go together for lengths of time we use this with a present perfect sentence structure for example we've been working since six hours ago we've been working since six hours ago so here we have since plus our length of time plus a go so these two are together we cannot say we've been working since six hours no we cannot say we've been working six hours ago we have to have both here so again some guides say this grammar is not standard but some native speakers do use this kind of pattern another example they've been waiting since 30 minutes ago they've been waiting since 30 minutes ago so we can use the same uh pattern as this one here so we go 30 minutes back in time that's the start point for this they've been waiting since 30 minutes ago this one communicates a continuing action yeah okay uh l says so is it the same as saying four yeah so we could say we've been working for six hours yes so this pattern is the same as with using four i think i think four is better because it's shorter it's more efficient but sometimes we use this like maybe sometimes native speakers start saying since and then they finish it in this pattern so just it's up to the person the person the speaker decides in the moment which pattern to use okay uh vibhavi anuba says i've been playing violin since three years ago very nice very nice um [Music] i hope i said that right says i've been watching this live since half an hour ago very cool lots of people are writing i've been watching since 30 minutes ago great great job everybody okay lots of people are writing that everybody great job i have been watching this since 20 minutes ago awesome yeah i have to finish i'm late so lastly um the what's the last one i've been exercising since three months ago is my last one i think that one sounds good for everyone okay last final points just a reminder for and since we commonly use for and since with present perfect tense as we practiced here and we use since and ago a lot with simple past tense so just a couple very short guys phew that was a lot okay i am very late i am running late so let's finish up today's lesson that was super great thank you for all of your great uh example sentences and questions i'll show you the lesson boards now so you can take a picture take a screenshot no all right so we talked about how to use for and since and ago that was a lot of information i know but i hope that it helps you as you create especially past or sorry present uh present perfect sentences yeah cool all right so that's it for today uh next week i'll be back of course next week's lesson information is here next week next week's lesson uh october 13th wednesday october 13th at 10 p.m eastern standard time that is new york city time if you don't know your local time please google it or set a reminder on youtube or on facebook or if you follow me on instagram you can find a link i always post a link and a topic reminder in my story so follow me there for that update next week i'm going to talk about how to use at in and on a preposition lesson yeah so please join me for that one it should be super good all right so that's it for this week thanks very much for joining thank you very much for liking and sharing the video that was great we had lots of people join us also don't forget to get your free stuff there's a lot of free stuff from the link below the video on youtube or above the video on facebook okay so check it out um check out everything that is it for me for this week i hope you have a great day have a great week and i will see you again next time bye

Channel: Learn English with EnglishClass101.com

Views: 48,458

Keywords: learn english, englishclass101, free english, english lesson, learning english lesson, talking about money in english

Id: PbRisX4hwJk

Length: 35min 42sec (2142 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 06 2021