Present Perfect Tense: Simple or Continuous? - Basic English Grammar

wanna speak real English from your first lesson sign up for your free lifetime account at English class 101.com hi everybody my name is Alisha in this lesson I'm going to talk about the difference between the present perfect tense and the present perfect continuous tense many people ask about the difference between these two so I'm going to talk about how to make these tenses and sometimes when you might want to use them so let's get started first of all I want to begin with sort of a visual of these two grammar points I'm going to start with the present perfect tense here though so you might have seen another video on this channel about the present perfect tense how to use it how to make it but I'm going to review quickly here the present perfect tense I'm going to talk about two uses of the present perfect tense they are first that we use the present perfect tense to express life experience at a nonspecific time in the past so this means something that we did in the past meaning before the present time here on a timeline but the exact point in time is not important so we use this for perhaps our job experience or our travel experience for example with expressions like I have been to France or I have worked at XYZ company for example the specific time is not important so we can use the present perfect tense to describe those things the second point I want to talk about with the present perfect tense is how we use it to refer to an action that started in the past and that continues to the present or the effects of that action started in the past and continue to the present rather so on our timeline it sort of looks a little bit like this some actions started in the past and the action has continued to the present in other words so these are the two points I want to talk about with the present perfect tense let's take a look then to review how to make the present perfect tense when you're making a statement with the present perfect you might use a pattern like this so if your subject is I we you are they will use that plus half plus the past participle form of a verb you might use for or since depending on the the point that you're using here and you'll finish the sentence with the extra information if your subject however is he or she or it will use has instead of have and then follow it with the past participle form of the verb perhaps for or since depending on your sentence and your information so some examples of this are I have been to Italy so have follows this pattern and bin is the past participle form of the verb be I have been to Italy in this one he has studied English for six months so here I'm using 0.1 here I'm using point two in this in this bullet-pointed list so this is a general life experience I have been to Italy second this is an action that started in the past and that continues to the present he has studied English for six months so this is an action that's probably still in progress okay let's look at then some questions I want to review how to make questions with this tense so for simple yes and no questions we can use patterns like this has if your subject is he or she or it will begin with pass if your subject is I we you or they will begin with have so let's start with this has he she or it plus the past participle form of the verb plus again this for or since perhaps and then your extra information at the end of the sentence with have it's the same so have I we you were they plus past participle verb and may be for or since so a couple examples of this has she finished her homework so here has and my subject is she has she finished as the past participle form of the verb finish has she finished her homework and have they cleaned up the house so these are questions asking has this action been completed so we've for now in other words these two actions in this case her homework and the housecleaning are they finished yes or no but the time at which the action was finished is not so important in these questions the speaker the person asking the question only wants to know is it finished is it not finished that's it so the specific time is not important that's why the present perfect tense is being used to ask the question let's look at a different question pattern this is when you want to get information you're using a question word like who which what how and so on so we begin with our question word and then we follow the same pattern we saw up here so for example we could use question word Plus has he and past participle verb form plus four or since perhaps and our extra information or question word plus have and our i we you they past participle verb and for or since so one great example of this is where have you been where have you been so again the speaker is asking in the in the period of time before the present where was the listener where have you been in this period of time so this is a very common question so we use these these types of questions just to ask about things that happened or maybe that continued to happen before the present but maybe not at a specific point in time also please keep in mind we use for and since commonly with this point right here the continuing action point remember we use for before a length of time like for three years for five hours and we use since to refer to a specific point in time okay so with that in mind let's take a look then at the present perfect continuous tense so present perfect continuous tense we use this for actions that started in the past and continued to the present yes so just like this one that we talked about here but this point it emphasizes a continuing action so we use this for something that we're putting our effort into now our focus into right now or for an interrupted action for example so I'll introduce some examples here in just a moment to make the present perfect continuous the pattern is quite similar to the present perfect tense we have this same change with the subject depending on the subject we'll use i we you they plus half then we'll use bin but then we'll follow it instead of with the past participle form of the verb will use the progressive or the content continuous form of the verb the ing form of the verb and here we can use for or since and the ending information same thing with he she and its subjects the only difference is we'll use has instead of half here and then we'll follow it with bin progressive form of the verb and for or since depending on your statement so let's take a look a couple examples here I've been teaching this lesson for five minutes maybe so here I'm saying this lesson is in progress this lesson is continuing and I'm using four to show the length of time I'm making a guess there but that's roughly or that's about how long this lesson has been continuing for I imagine so I use the progressive in the past perfect tense to show that so it's an action that started in the past and it continues to now and right now it's the focus of my attention right now I'm focusing everything on teaching this lesson so I want to emphasize that therefore I use the progressive tense here in the past perfect let's look at another one he's been studying all morning he's been studying all morning this sentence sounds like the he in the sentence is maybe still studying so this is something he's put his effort into and his focus into all morning long so when we want to really emphasize someone's focus or someone's effort we can use the present perfect continuous tense also you might notice I've used this expression all morning at the end of the sentence when you're using the progressive or the continuous version of the past perfect you can end your sentence with like all morning or all night all afternoon lately or recently to talk about the period of time that you've been focusing or the period of time that you want to emphasize that action was continuing we'll see another example later okay let's look at those some questions using the present perfect continuous so just as we saw with the present perfect tense we'll begin with have or has for some simple yes or no questions and then depending on the subject will change this this initial this initial word have or has and then we'll again we'll use bin plus the progressive form of a verb and perhaps for or since before our concluding information so some examples first has he been sleeping all day so here I've used has because my subject is he I've used bin and the progressive form of sleeping so sleep becomes sleeping has he been sleeping all day meaning in this period of time has he been sleeping continuously this is the question has he been sleeping all day so probably he the person in this sentence is still sleeping has he been sleeping all day so let's look at one more example if this kind of question pattern then so another one would be have they been working on the project so here I've used half because I'm using the word they here so a group of people and again I'm using bin and working on the project have they been working on the project meaning from some point in time in the past have they may be a team or a group of people continuously so non-stop have they been working so this question emphasizes their continued progress their continued work on the project okay let's finish up with a different kind of question pattern so again when you use a question word like who which what or how for example we can use has or have again here depending on the subject of the sentence so I think that this part is the same as the question pattern we just talked about so let's just take a look at the example sentences here first one how have you been exercising lately how have you been exercising lately so this how by the way means in what way have you been exercising lately so in this case the speaker probably knows that the listener has been exercising lately and the speaker wants to know how meaning in what way so how have you been exercising lately meaning in the past up until now in this period continuously what has been your method of exercise or what's the way you've been exercising this is what the speaker is asking in the last one where has he been keeping his files so here my question word is where has he been again and keeping in this case keeping is in the progressive or the continuous tense where has he been keeping his files so in this sentence for example maybe someone is searching for some files or some data maybe a colleague is absent for example and the speaker wants to know where has he been keeping so from the past until now where has he been keeping his files so when we want to emphasize something that started in the past continues to the present or there's something we're really focusing our effort or our energy on we can use the present perfect continuous tense to do that so if you want to emphasize maybe the completion of an action something that has finished we can use the present perfect tense like he has studied English for six months and he has been studying English for six months they yes they communicate the same thing but using he has studied English for six months doesn't sound like so much effort continues to be put into the study if you want to really emphasize your effort you should use the progressive form he has been studying English for six months sounds like it's continuing it sounds like there's more focus on that act so try to keep this slight difference in mind and if you really want to emphasize your effort and your focus try using the continuous form of the present perfect tense instead of just the present perfect so I hope that this was helpful for you if you have any questions or comments or if you'd like to try to make an example sentence please feel free to do so in the comment section below this video if you liked the video please make sure to hit the thumbs up button subscribe to the channel and check us out at English class 101.com for some other good resources thank you very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon bye bye [Music]

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Keywords: English Language (Interest), learn english, Language (Quotation Subject), Teacher (Profession), american culture, english culture, EnglishClass101, how to, speak, write, read, english, native speaker, english grammar, grammar lesson, basic english grammar, english tense, present perfect, present perfect simple, present perfect continuous, present perfect progressive

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Length: 14min 0sec (840 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 11 2019