Wanna speak real English from your first lesson? Sign up for your free lifetime account at
EnglishClass101.com. Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha, and today I'm going to
give a short explanation of some basic uses of the present perfect tense. So, let's begin! Okay, the present perfect tense, what I'm
going to talk about today, there are two basic points to think about when using the present
perfect tense. We use the present perfect tense, first, number
one, to express a life experience so this can be a life experience you have had, or
a life experience you have never had. So, we use this grammar point to talk about
life experience but with one key nuance, this life experience, it happened at a non-specific
or an unimportant point in time, so the point in time when this life experience happened
is not important in this sentence. In the sentence where you use the present
perfect tense, the point in time where you had the experience is not the focus of your
statement, the focus of your statement is just the life experience. So, to give a visualization of this on a timeline
with past present and future, the present perfect tense is used to express a life experience
at a non specific point in time meaning we use it for some experience you had at some
point before the present, some point before the current conversation. So we use the present perfect tense to talk
about a life experience that happened at a non-specific point in the past. So when specifically this experience happened
is not important, this grammar point allows us to simply say that we have or have not
had an experience. So this is the first grammar point about the
present perfect tense, the simple use of the present perfect tense. The next point I want to talk about though,
is the second point, number two, here we use the present perfect tense to talk about an
action that started in the past and continues to the present. The effect of an action that started in the
past continues to the present. So this is a grammar point that's slightly
different from number one that I talked about, so the image here is an action that started
at some point in the past, it began at some point in the past, and it continues to the
present, or the effects of that action continue to the present. So this is something we can use to talk about
where we live, our studies, our work experience, for example. I'll show you in a couple of example sentences
a little bit later, but this is the second use; the second grammar point I want to talk
a little bit about today. So, it's important to note that when we use
this second point, when we use the second use of this grammar point, we often use the
words “for” and “since” to express that action that began in the past and continued
to the present. It gives the listener some extra information
about the duration about how long that action has continued, so the difference between “for”
and “since,” many people make a mistake with this. So use of “for” and “since” is important
with grammar point number two here, especially because it gives the listener some information
about how long the action has been happening. So in an example sentence, you could say,
“I have lived in Paris for three years,” or you could say “I have lived in Paris
since 2014.” So you can hear “for” is used for a period
of time, “I have lived in Paris for three years.” Three years is a period of time, your period
of time can be years, months, days, minutes, hours, and so on. Any period of time can be used with the word
“for.” I have been teaching this lesson for few minutes. I have been standing up for about an hour
,for example. You can use a different time duration for
different expressions, you can use this actually a lot in your everyday life. But on the other hand, let's talk about “since.” So “since” is used for a point in time. When we want to talk about a point in time
where an action began, where an action started, we can use “since.” So for example, in my sentence, I said, I
have lived in Paris since 2014. So that “since” shows the exact year when
I started living in Paris, I have lived in Paris since 2014, and the action continues
to the present. So we can use “for” and “since” to
show when an action began, and we also know that that action is going to be continuing,
that action will continue to the present. So these are kind of the two grammar points
I'd like to talk about. Then lastly, I want to talk about how to make
this grammar point, how to make the present perfect tense. So I have three categories here, there's positive
statements, negative statements, and questions statements. These are just the basic forms of these three
types of sentences. So, let's talk about a few different sentence
patterns that we can make. I have positive statements, negative statements,
and question statements. These are just a few examples of the type
of sentences and questions that you can make with this grammar point. So first, to make a positive statement, we’ll
use “have” or “has,” depending on your subject. If your subject is “I,” for example, we’ll
say “I have,” “you have,” and “we have;” for “he” and “she,” “he has,” “she has,” and so on. So depending on your subject, we will use
“have” or “has,” next, we need to include the past participle form of the verb. So for example, “I have lived in Paris,”
“lived” is the past participle form of the verb “live.” "I have been to Paris," so we can use these
past participle forms of verbs “been” in this case to talk about the present perfect
tense. To use the present perfect tense, please try
to remember your past participle forms of verbs. But I find that one of the best ways to get
used to using the correct form of the verb here is just practicing in sentences, it's
a little bit difficult to memorize all the verbs just from a list, so try practicing
them in sentences to remember. Let's talk then about how to make a negative
statement. So a life experience you have not had, this
is the sentence pattern that you can use to describe that. So again, depending on your subject, use “have”
or “has;” “I have,” “he has,” and so on. Next, we'll include “never.” So “I have never,” “he has never,”
“they have never,” “you have never,” and so on. So this “never” shows no experience, this
is our negative expression. Then finally, we'll include the past participle
form of the verb, so “I have never eaten horse,” “He has never visited Italy,” and so on. These make negative statements with “never.” Okay, and finally, a couple of different question
patterns that we can use. There are a lot of different questions, yes
and no questions, information questions. Let's take a look at a simple one, a simple
yes/no pattern. So again, we begin with our “has” and
“have” depending on the subject here. So “have you been,” for example, with
the past participle verb. “Has she seen,” and so on. So again, we need to use this past participle
form of the verb when making our questions. You might have heard people use “ever;”
I have here at the bottom, this “ever” in this sentence style, “have you ever been
to France?” “Have you ever eaten something?” This “ever,” the nuance of this “ever”
is in your whole life experience, so “ever” kind of amplifies, “ever” emphasizes the
importance of your life experience, in your entire life, have you had the experience of
something. This "ever" emphasizes your entire life's
experience. If you say, for example, “have you seen
that movie?” It sounds like maybe it's a recent movie,
but if you say "have you ever seen such and such movie?" It sounds like maybe the movie is a little
bit older. So especially in cases where you'd like to
emphasize something that's not so recent, you might consider using "ever" in your questions. "Have you ever been to a different country?" "Have you ever studied something else?" So using ever shows that maybe you're thinking
about something a little bit further back, a little bit more in the past in someone's
life. Okay, so now that we know this, let's take
a look at a few examples sentences that I've prepared. So first I have, they ______ in Germany. So here, I want to use the verb "live," so
the past participle form of the verb live is lived, and my subject here is "they." So I need to use "they have lived in Germany." This is a very very simple sentence, they
have lived in Germany. I'm using this simple structure, this simple
grammar point number one which we talked about. So this is just a life experience, when did
they live in Germany? We don't know, but it's just the experience
that we want to focus on in this sentence. I could change the sentence to say, "they
have lived in Germany since 1999." In that case, it means they live in Germany
now, also. However, if they do not live in Germany, they
only want to express their life experience of living in Germany, they could say, they
have lived in Germany. They have lived in Germany, only that sentence. So please be careful, "they have lived in
Germany since 1999" shows they still live in Germany. Saying "they have lived in Germany" shows
only a life experience. If you'd like to give more information about
where they live now, do it in the next sentence. "They have lived in Germany, but they travel
around a lot, and now they're living in Paris," for example. So using the present progressive tense to
give some more information in the next sentence. Okay, so here we see grammar point number
one is being used in this first sentence. Let's take a look here at a negative sentence. "I _____ never ______ to Italy" here. We have the subject "I" here, we know that
it's a negative sentence because it's "never," so we need to use "I have never," and then
if I want to use the verb "be," if I want to use the verb "be," the past participle
form of the verb be is been. "I have never been to Italy" is the correct
sentence here. So I'm expressing no experience in my life,
"I have never been to Italy," meaning as we talked about with grammar point number one,
in my whole life I have not had an experience. So there's no time point being used here,
I have never had the experience of going to Italy. Ok, now, let's talk about the next example
sentence, "she ______ the test three times." So here I want to use the verb "take," so
to take a test, take is going to be the verb for this sentence. So here my subject is "she," and I know this
is a positive sentence, a positive statement, so I'm going to use "has," "she has." And take, the past participle form of the
verb take is taken. "She has taken the test three times." So this sentence shows in her life experience,
at three times, three points in her life, she has taken the test. So we don't know when she took the test but
we know she has taken the three times at some point in the past. This is what this sentence teaches us, we
don't know when, just that she has taken the test three times. Okay, next, let's look at this sentence, may
be a very useful sentence for some people who are watching this video on this channel. So this is "I ________ English for two years." Okay, so there's a big hint word here, I have
the word "for" included in this sentence. Remember we use "for" to talk about a time
period, a time period. So that connects to grammar point two which
we talked about over here. So remember with grammar point number two
for present perfect tense, we're showing an action that started in the past and continues
to the present. Okay, so the verb I want to use here is "study." So my subject is "I," so I need to use "have"
in this case, and the past participle form of study is studied, so "I have studied English
for two years." This shows us a length of time, a period of
time, a duration of your studies, it shows your studies are continuing, you are still
studying English. Two years ago you started and you have continued
since that time, you have continued study in for two years. So this sentence shows us that you have studied
English, and how long you have studied English, lots of information here. Okay, let's talk about the next sentence,
a question sentence now. Okay, so here my subject, I have "he," "he"
is here, so I know that because the subject of the sentence is he, I need to begin my
question with "has," "has he ______" So here I want to use the verb "take," take out the
trash is sort of a set phrase. So the past participle form of take is taken. "Has he taken out the trash?" Meaning perhaps today at some point has he
taken out the trash? So maybe we don't know when, and when he took
out the trash is not important, just has he finished the task at some point today. So we used the present perfect tense for that. So we can use the simple past sentence "did
he take out the trash?" But the reason that it sounds a little bit
more natural to say "has he taken out the trash" is because of this point we talked
about here, the effects of that action. So if he did or did not take out the trash,
it could affect the people around him, or the environment around him. So "has he taken out the trash?" If the answer is no, it might mean there's
some negative effect in the environment; if the answer is yes, perhaps it means the people
in the environment will be happy, there will be a happy effect of that. So this is the consideration, it's a very
very small point. If you ask "did he take out the trash," it's
okay to use but keep in mind though you may hear people say "has he taken out the trash"
as well, and this is the reason why, the effect of taking out the trash is what's kind of
the nuance of this expression. Great! So let's talk about the next example sentence,
"which countries _____ you ______ to?" So in casual kind of more everyday friendly
spoke in English, it's okay to end your sentence with a preposition, in this case, to. So here, I have an information question, which
countries, I need to use "have" or "has" here, plus "you," so that tells me I should use
"have," "which countries have you," and I want to use again the verb "be" here. So I know it should be been. "Which countries have you been to?" So again, in your life experience, which countries
have you been to?When is not important, just in your life, where, which countries. Okay, let's look at the next one. You'll see I have a little apostrophe, maybe
you can see it on the screen there, there's a little apostrophe here, which is a pronunciation
hint. So this is a yes-or-no question. "You' ____ never _____ a motorcycle?" So motorcycle, the verb I want to use with
motorcycle is "ride." The past participle form is ridden. "You've never ridden a motorcycle?" is the
complete sentence here. So I mentioned this pronunciation hint, "you
have" becomes "you've" in the contracted form, you've. So try not to use "you have," "he has," "she
has," tried to use that apostrophe-VE or apostrophe-S sound when you're speaking. "You've never," "he's never," "she's never"
sounds a lot more natural and a lot more fluid fluent as well than "he has" or "she has"
or "you have." So please try to use the contracted form here. So this sentence, "you've never ridden a motorcycle?" Meaning in your life experience, you have
never ridden a motorcycle, so this is a yes or no question. No, I've never ridden a motorcycle could be
the answer; or yes, I have actually ridden a motorcycle. So this is a simple yes-or-no question but
we use the negative form here, you've never, it sounds surprised, this sounds kind of shocked. Okay, let's look at our next example sentence. "We _____ never _______." The verb I want to use for this sentence is
"work." Okay, so the past participle form of work
is worked here, okay. And "we" is the subject of the sentence, so
we're going to use "We have never worked internationally." In our life experience, we do not have the
experience of working internationally. Okay, finally, "They ______ in Paris since
2015." So just as we practice with this example sentence
with "for," here we see "since." So this shows us that maybe a specific point
in time, in this case, 2015, is going to give us some extra information about this situation. So let's use the verb "live" again, we know
that the past participle form of live is lived. And we'll use "have" because our subject is
"they." So "They have lived in Paris since 2015." So this sentence shows us that in 2015 they
moved to Paris, and they have lived in Paris, they have continued living in Paris since
that time. This sentence shows us that with "since." Okay, so those are a few example sentences
and a short introduction to how to use the present perfect tense, and also a little bit
of information on using "for" and "since." So I hope that this lesson was useful for
you! If you have any questions or comments, or
want to try making a few example sentences, feel free to do so in the comment section
of this video. Also, please make sure to like this video
and subscribe to our channel if you haven't already, also check us out at EnglishClass101.com
for more good stuff. Thanks very much for watching this lesson,
and I will see you again soon, bye!
