Present Perfect vs Present Perfect Continuous | When to use each so that you don't make mistakes

i have studied english i have been studying english are these sentences the same or are they different let's find out [Music] hey everyone my name is wes this is interactive english and the channel is all about trying to help you practice and improve your english skills and today i want to help you improve your grammar because i want to talk about the difference between two verb tenses the present perfect tense and the present perfect continuous and these two verb tenses can confuse many english learners who may not be sure about how and when to use them as well as if there are any differences between these two tenses so before we talk about the differences between these two tenses i want to focus on how and when we use them and let's first begin with the present perfect tense which on its own can be very confusing because there are many languages that do not even have a present perfect tense so i want to first begin with how you're going to form the present perfect you're going to have a helping verb and a main verb the helping verb is going to be have and the main verb is going to be the past participle and we often use the present perfect to talk about a finished action in the past at an unspecified time we don't know when it's happened and it may have happened once or even more than once so let's look at this sentence right here i've been to china there i am right there again we have the helping verb have plus the past participle ben it is the past participle of the verb to be and you know that this happened in the past it's finished but you don't know when it's an unspecified time i've been to china or i could say well i've been to barcelona twice this happened in the past we don't know when but we know that it happened more than once there were two different trips to barcelona one thing that i want to say about the present perfect tense is that when you use it the the result is really what matters it's like you're more interested in the result than the action and i will come back to this when i talk to you about the present perfect continuous so let's let's think of this situation right here i'll i'll use a question and say have you hit the like button all right this is a question in the present perfect the the helping verb have the past participle hit that's our main verb have you hit the like button and again i'm really more interested in that result and i really am and i hope you would say yes i have hit the like button it happened in the past sometime between when the video started and right now and if you have let me know write that to me in the comments just say yes i have hit the like button practice writing using the present perfect and then i will tell you that you are awesome all right so with all of those examples that i just gave you we were talking about finished actions in the past so let's now move to the present perfect continuous and let's look at how this verb tenses form again we're going to use the helping verb have plus the past participle of the verb to be which has been have been plus our main verb with an ing at the end all right so in this case it's like we have two helping verbs have been and then the main verb and we use the present perfect continuous to talk about an unfinished action that started in the past it has continued to right now which is the present and then it will likely continue into the future so i could say well even right now i've been teaching this lesson it's an unfinished action it started in the past it has continued until right now and it's going to continue into the future and i hope you keep watching now one thing that i will say about the present perfect continuous is that when you use this verb tense the focus is more on the action because something is continuing so with the present perfect tense the focus is on the result with the present perfect continuous the focus is more on the action one thing that i want to remind you of and the reason why i'm so close is because i want you to remember this is that there are many non-action verbs that you should not use in the continuous tense and i'm putting a list of these verbs up here right now so you you should not use these verbs with the present perfect continuous but again with english there the people are always breaking these rules especially in spoken english but just to give you an example the if i give you a sentence like oh i have an iphone i'm talking about uh ownership possession i could use it in the present perfect tense and say yeah i've had an iphone for a long time uh it's an iphone 6 so it's pretty old but i could not use it in the continuous tense and say i've been having an iphone that just sounds awkward so just keep that in mind there are many non-action verbs that you should just avoid using in the continuous tense so now let's look at some differences between the present perfect tense and the present perfect continuous and i want to make some quick comparisons so you can see a clear difference between these two verb tenses especially how the focus is different so let's look at these two sentences right here we have redecorated our home and we have been redecorating our home the sentence in the present perfect we have redecorated our home it's talking about an action that started in the past and it's now finished we don't know when it started we don't know when it ended but the focus is on that result that yes it's it's finished the home it's it has been redecorated with the present perfect continuous we're talking about an unfinished action it started in the past and it's still going on right now so the focus is on that action that continuing action also and this may help you know when you should use the present perfect continuous if we're talking about an unfinished action that started in the recent past people may use this verb tense with the words recently or lately so i could say well recently we've been redecorating our home or lately we've been redecorating our home that tells me that this action it started in the recent past it's a continuing action that's gone until now and yes it's probably going to continue into the future here are another couple of sentences i have thought about buying a new phone or i've been thinking about buying a new phone so with the present perfect it suggests that okay i i thought about this in the past and then maybe i decided well no not to buy a new phone it's just something i thought about and then i stopped thinking about it and as you can see i still have this old iphone 6 and maybe i just made the decision not to buy one if i use the present perfect continuous and say well i've been thinking about buying a new phone that that suggests that i have not made a decision not yet i'm still thinking about it and maybe maybe in the future i'm going to make a decision and upgrade and get a new phone because yes this iphone 6 it's pretty old and then we get to these two sentences right here the sentences that you have been waiting for this entire lesson i have studied english versus i have been studying english and the difference between these two sentences is nothing well pretty much nothing because they're interchangeable you can use them and they basically mean the same thing because with both of these sentences we're talking about an unfinished action and i know this can be a bit confusing because you're probably thinking like wait a second wes you told us that the present perfect tense is used to talk about finished actions at an unspecified time in the past yes that is true but you can also use the present perfect tense to talk about an unfinished action that started in the past and and it's gone on for a duration of time or since a point in time and those are two key words that i really want you to remember and be aware of because we often use the present perfect with those words for and since so i could say i have studied english for three years a duration of time or i could say i've studied english since 2018 both of those sentences mean the exact same thing the only difference is for and since i could also say this using the present perfect continuous i've been studying english for three years or i've been studying english since 2018. so if somebody were to ask you how long have you been learning english you could respond with any one of those sentences it's it's really your pick there there's not much difference between them but there is a very there is very slight difference of course i didn't want to i didn't want to disappoint you i wanted to really get into details here so i was saving it for the very end and let's talk about those slight differences right now which is going to help you kind of will not only improve your comprehension but your overall fluency as well so the good news is is that when the present perfect and the present perfect continuous are basically interchangeable and they pretty much mean the same thing we're only talking about a handful of verbs we're talking about the verbs like teach play learn study and work all right so those are five verbs that when you're using either verb tense they're fairly interchangeable and they mean the same thing but again there may be a slight difference in a certain context situation it may be more appropriate to use one over the other so let's look at these sentences right here we've lived in budapes for four years and we've been living in budapest since 2017. so just looking at them generally speaking they're very similar they're they pretty much the same you could use them interchangeably but there may be a slight difference when talking about the permanent versus temporary so let me give you a couple of other sentences that i think are probably a little easier to understand when i talk about the difference between permanent and temporary so you're more likely to use the present perfect tense when when talking about an unfinished action that's more permanent and you're more likely to use the present perfect continuous when you're talking about an unfinished action that's perhaps temporary so i could say well i've worked for the company for 25 years i'm using the present perfect it's unfinished because i still work for the company and and it's more permanent it makes you think well i'm not looking for a job i'm not going to change jobs i'm just giving you this information i've worked for the company for 25 years if i say this that well i usually work downtown but i've been working at home ever since the pandemic started in this case i'm i'm referring to an action that started in the past it's unfinished because i'm still working at home but it's only temporary it makes you think that in the future then perhaps i'm not going to be working at home anymore i'm talking about a temporary situation i've been working at home ever since the pandemic started so hopefully that makes it a little easier to understand the difference when i say permanent versus temporary and you could even apply this to other sentences that you may use interchangeably so those two sentences that i told you a moment ago we have lived in budapest for four years or we've been living in budapest since 2017. in general you could use either one but again if you use the present perfect if i say we've lived in budapest since 2017 then it's a more permanent situation it might make you think well uh we're not currently looking to change the place that we live that we're probably going to stay in budapest if i say it using the present perfect continuous the focus is on that action that that we're we're still living here it's unfinished but it makes you think it may only be temporary because in the future that that's going to change if the focus is on that action in all likelihood that action is going to change in the future in which case we would we'll move somewhere else and that this is only temporary and if you were to ask me i would say the second one we've been living in budapest since 2017 because this is probably not going to be our permanent home in the future we will likely move somewhere else so even though with those five verbs work play live teach study you can use these verb tenses interchangeably you you could read a little more information into it if you want to think about whether something is going to be more permanent or if something is temporary i hope that that this lesson was easy to follow and easy to understand i know that i went i tried to go into a fair bit of detail in in talking about this information so that you have a better understanding to help you improve your comprehension but also your fluency as well if you are talking to somebody and you're trying to explain some situation that you are going to use the appropriate verb tense between the present perfect and the present perfect continuous if you enjoyed this lesson please hit that like button as always thank you so much for watching and i will see you next time

Channel: Interactive English

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Keywords: interactive english, learn english, english grammar lesson, learn english grammar, learn grammar, learn advanced grammar, advanced grammar english, learn grammar present perfect, learn grammar present perfect continuous, present perfect vs present perfect continuous, difference present perfect and present perfect continuous, grammar present perfect tense, grammar present perfect continuous tense, learn english verb tenses, present perfect and present perfect continuous

Id: jopAHmvPT-g

Length: 14min 3sec (843 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021