Talking About Your Accomplishments in English

it’s rolling hi everybody and welcome

back to our weekly live stream my name

is alicia

and in this week’s live lesson we are

going to talk about

how to talk about your accomplishments

we are going to practice three grammar

points you can use to do this

simple past tense present perfect tense

and

past perfect tense so i hope that you

will be able to

practice some grammar of course uh and

also hi everybody and welcome back to

our weekly

live streams my name is alicia we’re

going to talk about

um of course some vocabulary that you

can use some grammar points

uh that are important but i hope that

you can also send your example sentences

in the chat

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comment if you’re watching

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great so let’s look at our lesson flow

for the day

if you missed it today we’re going to

talk about three grammar points

we’re going to talk about three grammar

points you can use

to express your accomplishments so

accomplishments

means the things that you did your

achievements

i wanted to end this year on a positive

feeling

so we’re going to practice simple past

tense present perfect tense

and past perfect tense we can use all of

these tenses to talk about these things

and of course it’s not just the end of

the year you can use this grammar for

example

in a job interview or a school interview

to talk about your past so

if you want to take a screenshot here is

your first chance today

we’re going to practice past tense uh

present perfect tense and finally past

perfect tense

so you can send your example sentences

in the chat

or in a comment uh and we can i’ll try

to check

live um but i may not be able to get to

yours there are a lot of comments

coming from two places at the same time

so okay

let’s get started then everything is

ready we’re going to begin today

with past tense look let’s look at how

we talk about

our accomplishments with past

tense grammar simple past tense grammar

okay so

i have a basic pattern here uh

we’ll practice and then we’re going to

talk about

how to change the pattern to make some

different sentences so first

let’s begin here with this one okay

so first uh right here is time

period plus i and then a

past tense verb phrase this means

you need to choose a verb in simple past

tense so for example the verb eat

becomes

ate in simple past tense time period

means we express uh the point in time

or maybe the length of time in which

this action happened so i’ll show some

examples in just a moment

key point in red here we use

past tense for finished actions this is

different

from present perfect tense for example

which we use to express like continuing

actions yeah

so time period i past tense verb

phrase okay for example

this year i learned how to cook

this year i learned how to cook okay

here’s my time

period so this year that means in 2020

in this case okay and then oh we have a

new member on youtube welcome new member

on youtube

fantastic so this year 2020

i learned right here i learned

edie this is the simple past tense form

of learn to learn i learned

how to cook so i have this phrase

here i learned how to something

something something

you can change this verb of course to

reflect a different hobby or a different

interest you have

so this is a very common one this year i

learned how to

verb this verb this right here

this two cook do not change this to past

tense sometimes i see learners say like

this year i learned how to cooked no not

correct

only this verb needs past tense this

year i learned how to cook

also another question many learners ask

is can i use study here this year i

studied how to cook

for example it’s like there’s no

communication

problem but it sounds strange learned

sounds like you completed something

here so like uh you studied many

different topics

and now you have knowledge enough

knowledge to do something

studied if you use study here it’s like

you practiced a little bit

and maybe you can do it a little bit

this one sounds like you finished like

you have a level of knowledge now

yeah okay uh i’m looking for your

questions

oh uh khanwajit uh on youtube says in

2019 i started learning french very cool

very cool

okay socra says i learned how to design

very nice oh i want

i’m i’m studying how to design now a

little better too

aj gabriel says can we say this month i

start

learning english very close this month i

started past tense i started learning

english okay so please use a

past tense verb past tense verb phrase

let’s look at another example here today

i wrote an article for a magazine

today i wrote an article for a magazine

here’s my time period

so when did the action happen today

so today i wrote right here is my past

tense verb yeah

to write so write is simple present

tense the infinitive form

wrote is the past tense form today i

wrote an article for

a magazine this is my accomplishment my

achievement

for today ooh cassandra says uh in on

facebook says in 2020 i passed the nclex

was that a test and exam congratulations

sounds exciting okay uh

bruno says this year i learned i learned

how to speak english this year i learned

how to speak english okay great nice

examples everybody

okay another example last week

last week i gave a presentation

in an online conference

last week i gave a presentation in an

online

conference here’s my point in time or

the time period

when did the action happen last week

i gave so we use the expression to give

a presentation

to give a presentation so this verb

changes give in present tense

becomes gave in past tense last week i

gave a presentation

in an online conference

eugenia on youtube says can i say i had

write an

article no that is incorrect you maybe

you could say

i had written an article we’ll cover

that grammar in point

three today all right

uh someone on facebook i’m sorry i can’t

read your name i apologize i

teached my brother how to use facebook

careful teach

teach the verb to teach in past tense is

taught

t-a-u-g-h-t i taught

my brother how to use facebook

okay uh someone very nicely

kirill on facebook says these lectures

are awesome basic but why not

great yeah many so many people can

practice and pick something up

okay great let’s look at a couple notes

here now

uh these notes if the time period

is clear you can omit it you don’t have

to say

for example today or last week if

that’s already clear so for example

at the end of the day like your family

comes home or your partner comes home

whatever

you could say i made dinner so it’s

clear

i made dinner happened today at the end

of the day

not i made dinner last week but today

so if it’s clear you don’t have to say

tonight i made dinner

of course you can but you don’t always

have to

another point uh to talk about

someone else’s accomplishment for

example you want to talk about your

ch like your children’s accomplishment

or maybe a colleague

a co-worker your team whatever to do

that

just change the subject right here so

change this i

to my son or my daughter or

our team or he or she

just change this easy right so for

example

he started a company this year

he started a company this year last

point here

you can see i put this year at the end

instead of here this year he started a

company

if you want to emphasize this a little

bit

more you can put the time period at the

end of the sentence yeah okay

so this is our first grammar point for

today how to use

a past tense to express our

accomplishments or

our achievements okay

all right someone says yesterday i ate a

banana

okay is that is that an accomplishment

for you maybe so

maybe if you were sick for example okay

so we’ll finish

past tense there let’s take a short

break and then we’ll go

to present perfect tense everyone’s

favorite grammar point perfect 10.

okay i’m going to show you today’s

lesson boards again so if you want to

take a screenshot

get ready i’ll show you now

okay so we just practiced past tense

now we’re going to practice present

perfect tense how we use present perfect

tense

and present perfect continuous to

express our accomplishments

also if you missed it earlier please do

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the family and relatives very important

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okay uh with that let’s go to

part two um let’s go to past perfect

oh no sorry present perfect someone said

can i show the screen again yes i will

show it a couple more times

later so please don’t be worried okay

let’s go

to uh the next part

present perfect tense everybody loves

present perfect

right okay let’s take a look at how to

use

present perfect tense to express

our accomplishments first let’s review

what is present perfect tense what does

it look like

we use i have

plus the past participle

form of a verb so i’m not going to cover

a list of past participle verbs you can

google this very easily

yeah we have this pattern to make the

basic

present perfect i have learned or i have

studied or i have

eaten for example and we have

this pattern which makes the present

perfect

continuous form i have

been ing verb form that continuous verb

form

i have been ing verb for

length of time for three years for

10 minutes for eight days or

since with a point in time so since

yesterday or since

last year and so on so what do we use

these for

in red here we use present perfect tense

for actions that started in the past

and continue to the present or

the effects of the action

like affect the present so the action

the past action

it affects the present affects what’s

happening now

and many people ask like what’s the

difference between these two

so when we want to express just life

experience

for example travel experience or food

you ate

something like that but when you

experience it

isn’t so important we use this for

example

i have been to france or i have eaten

pad thai we don’t care when

we just express the experience

this action i’m sorry this grammar point

expresses an action

that started and is continuing and we

want to

emphasize that the action continues

so let’s take a look at a few

examples of this so here’s a very common

one

we can use i’ve finished my

homework i’ve finished my homework here

i’ve this is the reduced form of i have

yeah

i have we make it shorter with

i’ve i’ve i’ve finished

my homework so when did i finish my

homework not important

just sometime before so i’ve finished my

homework yay

so uh if you are a student you can use

this when your parent

or someone asks you about your homework

progress okay oh we have new member

welcome vicente rodriguez very cool

okay so i’ve finished my homework

finished

is the past participle form of the verb

finish i’ve finished my homework okay

uh i’m looking for your question

uh hironi says i have been playing

netball since 2005. what is

netball i don’t know what nepal is i

have to google that later

all right uh next one let’s look at a

continuous

example now here i’ve

been working on a small

project for a few weeks i’m gonna

share it soon i’ve been working on a

small project for a few weeks

i’m gonna share it soon here we have

again

this i have that’s reduced to i’ve

i’ve yeah this pattern right here i have

been

invert i have been working

on so working on this preposition don’t

forget this on here you need this

on i’ve been working on a small project

for a few weeks so this part tells us

how

long the action has continued

for so three weeks is the time period

so far so it’s going to continue it’s

not

quite finished that’s what this tells us

then they say i’m

gonna which is the reduced casual form

of going to i’m gonna share it

soon i’m gonna share it soon so this is

an expression you can use

if you started working on something

and you continued working on it it’s not

quite finished it’s almost finished very

close

and you are planning to share it you can

express that with this

i’ve been working on something so a

small project or

your project whatever i’ve been working

on this thing

for a few weeks or since 2015 whatever

i’m gonna share it soon okay

um i’m looking for your questions and

your examples

what is the difference between two roles

in present perfect i’m not sure what two

roles mean can you give me an example

maybe

the person asking that question on

facebook okay

uh matthew says i have been waiting for

english class yeah cool

so i’ve been waiting for english class

all week for example very nice very nice

okay um let’s continue to the next

example here

i want to talk about this expression

this

example sentence starts with so far this

year

so far this year okay i’ve learned

500 new vocabulary words

so what is happening here right here

i’ve

learned this is the basic

present perfect form i have learned yeah

i’ve learned so i’ve learned 500 new

vocabulary words

this part right here this is very very

useful

so far this year so far that means

until this point this day in 2020

or whatever year this

is my progress so far this year i’ve

learned 500 new vocabulary words

so if we do not use this if we just say

this sentence i’ve learned 500 new

vocabulary words

it’s like saying in my life

right or we don’t know the time the time

frame the time period

this shows us in this time period

of this year up to this point this year

i’ve learned 500 new vocabulary words

you could say this year if you want if

you include

so far though it sounds like you’re

going to continue

yeah that’s the difference those are

those little little choices

you can make to increase like the

the depth of what you’re saying okay uh

nalki says so far this year i’ve learned

1 000 new russian vocabulary

words very nice very nice example

sentence okay

uh anwar on facebook says i have been

writing the story

of my life and i’m gonna share it soon

that’s intense nice great example

sentence okay

um aj says i’ve been working on my

homework project for a few

days a few days don’t forget that s

at the end there nice example sentence

alan says i’ve been working at home for

11 months

great example yeah i know many people

are working at home most of the time

these days

okay um vac nerc has a great question

alicia why not i finished my homework

actually that’s correct too you can say

i finished i finished my homework a past

tense example

it’s up to you do you want to

communicate

uh that the action is finished or do you

want to

communicate a slightly different feeling

of some action in the past

that affects the present so like uh it’s

up to you

in that case sometimes both are totally

fine

that’s an example of it that is also

okay to use

uh okay good i think that looks pretty

good

um uh

okay let’s go to the next example

sentence last one

i’ve been writing a book since the

beginning of the year

i’ve been writing a book since the

beginning of the year

in this sentence i used since since so

remember when we use

since we have to follow it with a point

in time we cannot use a length of time

this

the beginning of the year it not it

doesn’t mean

january 1st but about about the

beginning of the year

so you can use since as well so i used

four here

but don’t forget you can use since too

all right so this is how we can use

present perfect tense

to express our accomplishments and as we

practiced with simple past tense

to change the subject if you want to

talk about someone else in your life

you’re one of your

kids or your partner your co-worker

just change the subject so he or she or

my child

whatever please note however if you want

to use

he or she or maybe it as the subject

your helping verb has to change so

he has been studying or she has been

working and so on so this verb this

helping verb

have changes to has i have many videos

about

present perfect tense on our youtube

channel you can check those for some

more information

uh someone says fati says what tense do

we use after since well there’s not

this part is there’s not a tense it’s

just uh

we’re just talking about a point in time

so

since the beginning of the year like

think of this as a noun phrase like

uh since yesterday or since october

yeah so the beginning of the year

is like a noun phrase yeah okay

uh i have to stop there so we’ll go to

the last part now

uh about past perfect tense some of you

are asking some questions that i

answered a few minutes ago

so you can check the live stream after

uh it

ends and i hope the question will be

answered there

all right i’m going to show you the

lesson boards again if you want to take

a screenshot get ready here they come

all right so we talked about past tense

at the beginning of the lesson

now uh we just finished present perfect

tense

now we’re going to talk about past

perfect tense this is the next

thing to look at uh the trickiest one

the challenging one so

uh i hope it’s good if you missed it

quick reminder please make sure to like

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hit the thumbs up button

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talked about

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there’s some expressions for the first

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you can check these kinds of things

there are so many of these so you can

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interesting or helpful for you uh and

practice

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studies

all right let’s go to the last part of

today’s lesson

present no sorry past perfect tense past

perfect tense let’s get to it

okay so past perfect tense to express

your accomplishments

this is something this is a grammar

point

you can use uh on a resume so for

example when you apply for

a job or when you go to a job interview

this is a grammar point you might use so

first

let’s look at how we make it and then

let’s look at how it’s

different from present perfect tense i

get a lot of questions about this

grammar point

so past perfect tense here

key point i had past participle verb

and to make past perfect continuous it’s

i had been and the ing verb

so just now in part two of today’s

lesson

we practiced present perfect tense that

uses

i have past participle verb i have been

this verb this helping verb here changes

so i

had i had we need to use this

so in red in red color here what does

this do why do we need this grammar

point

we use past perfect tense to express

a continuing past action

and its relationship to

a different past action or

condition so what does that mean well

okay so

i think it’s a little easier to imagine

here

so this is a timeline here’s the past

and here the star is now so our lesson

now you’re watching

and the future so in blue here

this continuing action blue the squiggly

blue marks the continuing action

red is another just simple

past action so it’s an action or a

condition or a point in time

in the past we use past perfect tense

to express this relationship so

usually we want to express some action

words continuing in the past and there

was a key

past action or past point

that has a connection to that action

this sounds very complicated so

let’s look at an example so you can see

what’s going on and how you can use it

for example i had been working

freelance for two years

when i decided to start

my own business so again i had been

working freelance for two years

when i decided to start my own business

let’s break this sentence down i had

been working

freelance so freelance means you don’t

have like one

company or one employer you go to every

day

you work with many different clients or

many different people

i had been working freelance for two

years

this part is my past perfect continuous

i had been working this is my blue

action yeah it’s continuing

in this case for two years for two years

i know that here

it had been continuing for two years

when

so this when expresses the point

when something something changes or some

past action happened

in this case i decided to start

my own business i decided to start my

own business

so these two actions are connected we

show that

here with this grammar point past

perfect

we connect it we show that point of

change or

interruption with when and this part

i decided to start my own business is in

simple

past tense because this action

was a one-time action it finished yeah

so we

do not use past perfect for part this

this part of the sentence only for the

continuing

action okay so you can try to send an

example in the chat i will try to check

while i show you the next example

sentence here

here’s an everyday example that you can

use

i had finished making dinner

by the time my roommate got home

i had finished making dinner by the time

my roommate got home

so here i had finished

making dinner this expresses my action

my past action

something i was doing in the past here

however

i’m using by the time not when what’s

the difference between by the time and

when here

when expresses exactly exactly the point

this action the second action happened

by the time however maybe if you study

the preposition by

you know we use it to express a deadline

yeah

by the time means okay

by the time my roommate got home so

imagine the roommate got home

at this this point here by the time

expresses some time before this sometime

before this

that’s what it’s expressing so not

exactly but sometime before that that’s

what by the time

expresses and again got this is a past

tense by the time

my roommate got home or you could say by

the time my roommate arrived

at home also okay okay

um all right

someone says a pocket right says i had

watched many movies at the cinema

when the pandemic began i’d watched many

movies at the cinema

when the pandemic began i think i would

say i

i think i would probably use a simple

past tense there like i

i watched a lot of movies at the cinema

before the pandemic

maybe i think i would probably use

because it’s like

the emphasis here is some continuing

action that was like interrupted or

changed maybe yeah or maybe you could

say like

uh i had been going to the cinema every

week

for many years uh but then

the pandemic started so maybe something

like that would be a little bit more

natural if you want to express

a continuing action like a regular habit

of going to the movie theater

um can we say had you been learning

english in a question

yes as a part of a question like had you

been learning or maybe like had you been

studying english

at that time maybe it kind of it depends

a little on the situation

yeah okay um let’s go to

the last one because i’m late so last

example sentence for this part here

when i graduated from college

i had already been working for a year

when i graduated from college i had

already been working for a year

in this example sentence the past tense

action comes first when i graduated from

college that’s this point

this part i had already

been working so already communicates

some action started some action started

so

i didn’t start after i graduated from

college

i started before i want to emphasize

that

i use already i had already been working

for a year so we use this grammar point

to show the relationship between two

past actions

uh one continuing and one that kind of

makes a change

or interrupts something yeah so if

uh this is just a quick introduction to

how we use

past perfect to express our

accomplishments

uh especially for like job and school

interviews if you want to know more

about

these grammar points there are some

videos on the channel i’ll put some

links in the youtube description so you

can check

and review some more information about

this grammar because i know this one

especially

this one is challenging to use to get

used to using

okay all right i’m late so we’ll finish

there for today

i’ll show you uh today’s board so you

can take

a picture take a picture take a

screenshot here we

go sorry sorry sorry okay

here are today’s lesson boards we talked

about

past tense present perfect tense and

past

perfect tense to talk about your

accomplishments

so you can use these for everyday

uh activities like making dinner and you

can use them

for job and school interviews uh and so

on so i hope that you have a chance to

practice these

and of course this year it’s a good

chance to think about

what you accomplished what you achieved

this year

okay so we’ll finish there for today

thanks for your great questions of

course i’ll be back

next week as always next week’s lesson

is oops just a second there

uh next week’s lesson is going to be

about

uh new year’s expressions oh my gosh i

have the wrong date let me fix the date

real quick

next week i’m going to talk about

holiday expressions can you believe it’s

already the end of the year

oh my gosh that’s so crazy to me that’s

december

23rd oh my gosh december 23rd we’re

almost to the end of the year

i think uh will be

that might be our last lesson actually

uh

for the year and i will confirm that

with you before we

uh get everything rolling expressions

for

the holidays and the new year sorry guys

i put the wrong date in there okay so

this will be next week’s lesson topic

right here december 23rd 10 p.m eastern

standard time new york city time you can

google it or

set a notification on youtube or

facebook so i’m going to talk about

expressions for the holidays

and the new year so things that you can

say uh at the end of 2020

quite a year quite a year for sure so

please join me again

next time to talk about these sorts of

things

okay so i’ll finish there for today uh

thank you as always to everybody who

joined us this week that was super fun

for your great example sentences awesome

questions

thank you very much oh and thank you for

liking the video and sharing the video

we had lots of people join us this time

uh if you haven’t already of course

please don’t forget to check out

the free stuff from the link below the

video and above the video

also i’ll add some links uh to the

youtube description if you’re watching

on facebook sorry i can’t update the

facebook one but i can’t update youtube

so please check the youtube

description for this video on the

english class 101

youtube channel i will put some links

there for

reference so you can practice today’s

topics a little bit more

i will say goodbye so thanks as always

for joining us and

enjoy the