Past vs Passed Learn English Vocabulary

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hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to talk about

past and past these words can be

commonly confused because they have

very similar pronunciations but they

have different

grammatical functions i’m going to talk

about maybe some of the most confusing

points about these words

let’s get started okay first i want to

look at the word

past p-a-s-t so

past has a few different

parts of speech that it’s commonly used

in

in this lesson i’m going to look at past

as an adjective

as a noun and as a preposition

first let’s take a look at how we use

past

as an adjective so we use

past as an adjective meaning it modifies

nouns to mean something that happened

or existed before

the present so a reminder the present is

now something past is something that

happened

before now so yesterday

last week last weekend last year

so we use past as an adjective with a

noun

to explain something that happened or

existed

in the past some examples

which of your past jobs

was the most challenging which

of your past jobs was the most

challenging so here past

modifies jobs that means jobs you had

before so before now your past

jobs which of your past jobs in the past

was the most challenging the next

example

in past meetings we talked about

hiring new staff in past

meetings we talked about hiring new

staff here past is modifying

meetings so that means meetings before

now in those meetings plural in those

meetings

we talked about hiring new staff getting

new staff members

so past in this way refers to something

that happened

before now or it can refer to something

that

existed before now let’s continue

to the next use of past as an

adjective so we use past to mean

ago or time that has

gone by so let’s look at some examples

of this

first one i’ve been working

on this project for the past

two weeks i’ve been working on this

project

for the past two weeks

here you’ll notice i’m using this i’ve

been working pattern so this is a

present perfect progressive pattern

this shows us i started working on the

project

two weeks ago and i’ve been working

refers to continuous work

for those two weeks so that means my

start point was in the past

which i’ll talk about later my starting

point was two weeks ago

and i’ve been working i continued

working until

now the present so this refers to

time that has gone by so this time

period

we kind of explained that with

past the past two weeks this

the past two weeks means the

most recent the past two weeks the past

hour the past week the past month that

means this

most recent week or this most recent

time period whatever that is so the past

two weeks means this time that has gone

by

one more example of this we met

for a coffee this past weekend

this past weekend so again this weekend

that went by so meaning last weekend

in this case this past weekend i could

change this to say

we met for a coffee last weekend but you

might hear someone say

this past weekend so this past weekend

again

we know it means the most recent weekend

because it means

this so you might hear this or the

and that shows us the most recent of

that time period

so we use past in this way and this is

kind of a pattern you might hear more in

american english you might hear

slightly different uses that follow this

meaning

in british english okay let’s continue

to

one more point about the adjective use

of

past so we use past when it’s relating

to verb tense so i’ve used it maybe in

this lesson

when we want to talk about actions

before the present

and we’re explaining it in terms of

language we use the expression

past tense so for example i think i said

here

this is present perfect tense

we also use past to talk about the verb

tense we use

to explain past actions or past

existence

for example ate is the past

tense form of eat so the verb

eat in past tense is eight

eight is the past tense form of eat one

more example

please conjugate the verbs to past

tense please conjugate the verbs to past

tense conjugate means change the verb

form

so please conjugate the verbs to past

tense so when you’re talking about

actions or existence in the past

and you want to talk about the

language related word we use to do that

you can use past tense so

this is an overview of the adjective

uses

of the word past i want to go now

to number two here the noun use of the

word

past so as a noun in a sentence

past means the time before the present

so that just means any time before the

present we can call that

the past so for example the introduction

to this lesson

is in the past some more examples

he has a dark past a dark past so

dark means it’s not good probably dark

so it’s not light it’s not great it’s

dark so that means

his life before the present time

is dark one more example don’t think

about the past

don’t think about the past so that means

the things that happened before

don’t think about those things in the

past so

past as a noun means just any time

all the time before the present and

you’ll often see

the before past the past don’t think

about the past

because there’s only one sort of if that

makes sense it’s like

all time before now is the past it’s in

the past

okay so lastly here i want to talk about

number three which is the prepositional

use

of the word past i’m going to talk about

two points here first is using

past to mean after

after for example we’re past

small talk we’re past small talk

in this situation past means we’re

beyond small talk so for example

this sentence might be in a situation

where two people have become friends

maybe at first you use small talk how’s

the weather

how was your weekend very easy

conversations

but after time you become closer and

you can talk about more complicated

issues or you can talk about

deeper topics you can say we’re

past small talk this means our

relationship is

beyond or it’s after small talk we’re

past

small talk so this refers to someone’s

relationship we often use this to talk

about

activities or our relationships to other

people

another very common example is using it

with

time periods for example it’s half

past four it’s half past 4 that means

it’s 4 30. it’s half past 4 means it’s

half

after 4. so this prepositional use

of past means after after

finally then is this prepositional use

so we use past to mean

moving close to and then beyond

moving close to and then beyond so a

great example

is a car a car and for example a house

so the car moves close to the house

and then the car moves beyond the house

this is a very common example of how

this is used

so if we imagine the same idea with

these example sentences we can see how

past communicates that here he

walked past the restaurant he walked

past the restaurant so here if this is

my restaurant here’s a person walking

he walked past the restaurant

so this means he moved close to

the restaurant then beyond the

restaurant

he walked past the restaurant another

example they drove the boat past

the harbor they drove the boat past the

harbor

so again here is my harbor here is the

boat they drove the boat

past the harbor so that means there’s no

stopping

it was a continuing motion so past the

harbor or

past the restaurant we use past as a

preposition in this way this is a key

point of confusion

i think and i’m going to talk about past

in just a moment

so these are the main points i want to

talk about with

past as adjective as noun and as

preposition

okay so with that in mind let’s take a

look now

at past p-a-s-s-e-d

past so past is the past

tense form of the verb pass

so i talked about over here we use

past p-a-s-t to talk about

the language-related terms we use for

verbs so here past tense of the verb

pass so one point of confusion

that happens here is that this past

tense

past shares a meaning with the

prepositional use of

past i talked about here so

this to move beyond meaning this

is shared there’s one meaning of the

verb

pass which is to move beyond something

that is

shared with the prepositional uh past

use however just because the meaning is

shared does not mean we can use them in

the same way we cannot use

past and past in the same way we have to

create

different sentence structures so

let’s change these sentences i talked

about in the beginning of this lesson

to pass pass’s ed form

here he passed the restaurant

he passed the restaurant so i can use

the same example

i mentioned earlier so to move in a

direction

and then to move beyond something you’ll

notice

here there’s no like verb there’s

no hint about how he moved was he in a

car

was he walking was he jogging was he

skating we don’t know

we only know he passed the restaurant

somehow in this sentence he walked

past the restaurant we do know we know

he was

walking so this is your choice you can

choose

to use he passed or he walked past it’s

totally up to you

both are correct one more example the

boat

passed the harbor the boat passed the

harbor so again

same situation we don’t know exactly

how the boat passed the harbor did the

boat quickly pass the harbor

was someone driving the boat was the

boat just floating

drifting we don’t know but

this communicates the basic situation

the boat moved in the direction of the

harbor and then

continued beyond it so past

does share a meaning here but the

sentence structure

is different so please keep this in mind

all of these sentences are correct

but these sentences give us a little bit

more

information so we might use sentences

like these

when it’s very clear like for example if

if you’re waiting in the restaurant and

you see your friend

walk in front of the restaurant and

continue walking

you might think oh he passed the

restaurant like

you know he was walking so you might use

it in a situation like this

in a situation where it it’s important

to communicate

exactly how the person passed you might

use the past

pattern okay so this is

one point of confusion i think for many

learners

now let’s move on to another point this

is related to

time so when i talked about p-a-s-t

i talked a bit about uh how we use it to

express

time that has gone by we have a

p-a-s-s-e-d

form as well so for example

two hours passed two hours passed

here it’s being used as a verb again

this is the past tense of the verb

pass so two hours passed that means two

hours went

by for example i’m waiting i’m waiting

for an appointment

and two hours passed that means two

hours went by

i cannot say two hours p-a-s-t

that is incorrect this is a verb p-a-s-t

as we talked about here is an adjective

i cannot use it there

you could say for example i’ve been

waiting as i used here i’ve been waiting

for the past two hours that would be

correct

we cannot use p-a-s-s-e-d in this way

so again this may be a point of some

confusion

but keep in mind verb form two hours

past the verb is coming after the time

period

and past two hours or two weeks your

adjective

is coming before your time period

let’s look at one more example a month

has passed and i haven’t heard

from my client a month has passed and i

haven’t heard from my client

so here i’m using in this case again

present perfect tense so a month is my

starting point a month ago

a month has passed so in this time

period

i have not heard from my client a month

has passed so again this is the verb

form past i cannot use p-a-s-t

in this way i have to use the verb form

because this

is a present perfect sentence structure

a month has passed and i haven’t heard

from my client

okay i want to talk about a couple of

other points

about this verb past actually there are

many uses of the verb

pass i can’t cover all of them in this

lesson

but a very important point to note is

this one to refuse something or to not

accept something so when we’re in a

casual situation

and we want to refuse something in a

friendly way

we can use the verb pass like i’ll pass

or just pass so that sounds a little bit

friendly sometimes a little bit rough in

past tense we use past as i’ve talked

about

and we use often in many cases the

preposition

on before the item we refuse

or before the item we do not accept for

example

she passed on dessert she passed on

dessert means she refused dessert she

didn’t want dessert

she did not accept dessert she passed on

dessert

another example he passed on my offer

he passed on my offer he declined my

offer he refused my offer

so this means refuse did not accept

something

important to note though using

passed on with nothing after the

preposition

can cause some maybe very important

confusion or some very troubling

confusion

when we use he or she passed or he or

she

passed on it can refer to death

so we use the expression to pass on

to maybe more politely say he or she

died so he passed on last week means

he died last week if the context

is not clear you may cause some

confusion

if you just use on passed on like she

passed on

of course if you’re talking about like

work or a dinner situation

there’s probably a low chance of

confusion if you use

she passed or he passed it’s probably

not going to cause confusion

but there may be some situations where

it’s

very important to note

this part of your sentence so please be

careful when you use

past and passed on in this way

as i said there are many different

meanings for the verb

pass but i wanted to talk about some

that can cause some confusion

especially with the uh the word past

p-a-s-t as i talked about earlier in

this lesson

so i hope that this helps clarify

or i hope it helps make some things

clear about the differences between

these two words

remember the key differences are in

grammatical

structure in the parts that i focused on

in this lesson

specifically this part and in this part

too

so i hope that it was helpful for you

but if you have any questions or

comments

or if you want to practice making some

sentences please feel free to do so in

the comment section of this video

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lesson and i will see you again

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