ALL English Tenses in 20 Minutes Basic English Grammar

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hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to give an introduction

to english tenses for this lesson i’m

going to give a short introduction to

when to use each of the english tenses

i’m also going to share an example of

what that tense looks like in a sentence

or in a question so this is just a quick

guide if you want more information about

any of these tenses you can try

searching the youtube channel or our

website for a video specifically about

one of these tenses so i hope this is

helpful for you okay so let’s get

started the first group of tenses i want

to look at is the present tense so for

today’s lesson i’ve organized it into

three categories present

past and future tenses so let’s begin

with the present tense so in each

category i have four different tenses i

have simple continuous perfect and

perfect continuous you might know

continuous as progressive they mean the

same thing continuous and progressive

mean the same thing for this lesson

so let’s begin with the present simple

tense present simple tense is a tense we

use for general facts for regular

actions and for schedules so this is

stuff that doesn’t change

like he speaks english for example she

doesn’t speak spanish that’s a simple

fact

for regular action so things you do

every day or every week for example

and schedule so that means like a bus or

an airplane or

maybe a car schedule something that

maintains a regular schedule an example

two examples of using the present simple

tense first

i work on mondays so here work is my

verb i work on mondays simple present

tense a negative i don’t eat lunch at

two o’clock so these are simple present

tense statements in this case they’re

just simple statements of fact really

okay so let’s continue to the next one

the second tense is the present

continuous tense

the present continuous tense

so present continuous tense we use for

continuing actions and that means

actions that are happening now so for

example i’m teaching i’m standing i’m

speaking those are actions happening now

so we use it for continuing actions now

like physical actions

we also use it for trends so things

happening in your society right now for

example so examples would be like that

tv show is becoming popular or the world

is getting warmer for example so these

are things happening now also

we can use it for one-time actions as

well

and this relates a little bit to future

tense which i’m going to talk about

later too but something happening just

one time in the future we can use the

continuous form to describe that so for

example i’m working this saturday so

sometimes students ask what’s the

difference why is it i’m working this

saturday and not i work this saturday

remember we talked about the present

simple tense we use that for regular

actions for general facts so if you

usually work on saturdays you should use

the present simple tense i work on

saturdays if however this saturday is

special and you don’t usually work on

saturdays you should use the continuous

tense i’m working this saturday so it

sounds like that’s not a typical thing

for you i’m working this saturday okay

let’s go on to the third tense the third

tense is the present perfect tense the

present perfect tense so we use the

present perfect tense for general life

experience or lack thereof so lack

thereof means no no life experience not

having a life experience so something

that you did in the past

but not at a specific point in time the

specific point in time is not so

important here or maybe we don’t know so

example

a negative example he has never been to

spain he has never been to spain in this

case no life experience of going to

spain is what this means so this is an

example of present perfect tense here we

have

he has remember we need to attach has or

have before our past participle verb

form here so for more information about

this tense you can check the channel

there’s more information there so let’s

continue on to the next tense now the

next tense is the present perfect

continuous tense present perfect

continuous we use this tense for actions

that started in the past and continue to

the present so something you started

doing

in the past some point in the past it’s

not always important when

but that action continues so you use

this a lot to talk about your studies

for example we use words like for and

since and maybe a go with this as well

so an example of this

i’ve been studying english for two years

so here we see i’ve been this i’ve is

the contracted the reduced form of i

have i have been

studying so this is the continuous or

the progressive form in this case i’ve

used the word for i’ve used four because

i’m using two years which is a length of

time we can use since for example i’ve

been studying english since 2016.

so we use since before a specific point

in time

we can use a go as well

usually we pair it with synths i’ve been

studying english

since two years ago you’ll notice when

we use a go however we change from using

in my first example 2016

to a length of time since two years ago

so there are a few different changes you

need to make there but you can check the

more in writing this is a grammar point

that’s especially helpful when we want

to show kind of a timeline in our

writing to show that an action happened

before another action in the past we can

use the past perfect tense so here’s a

couple of examples

uh first one

they hadn’t departed yet so here hadn’t

is the reduced form of had not they

hadn’t departed yet and i had taken my

lunch break

so we would use sentences like these if

we’re telling a story so we’re telling a

story about the past and we want to show

that one action happened before another

action when we want to talk about the

earlier action so the thing that

happened earlier like more in the past

we use the past perfect tense then we

can use the simple past tense to explain

the action that happened closer to the

present

so for example

i had taken my lunch break when i saw

the delivery man came or something like

that so you can see my second point

there that’s kind of a strange example

but

you see that my second point there uses

the simple past tense i saw the delivery

man came so i had taken my lunch break

further in the past

when i saw the delivery man came so

that’s simple past tense so this is

probably more common in writing but it

is used in speaking as well too so this

is what we use a past perfect tense to

do okay let’s move on then to another

challenging point uh past perfect

continuous tense past perfect continuous

these uh these are sentences or

questions

for actions that started in the past and

continued to like an unspecified point

in the past so the action has finished

as well that’s a key difference with the

present perfect continuous with present

perfect continuous the action is

happening now still that behavior still

continues key point though with past

perfect continuous is that the action

started at some point in the past and

then continued and finished as well but

at some unspecified point so maybe we

don’t know exactly when the action

finished but it’s done it’s complete so

let’s look at an example

they had been waiting since 3 pm

so here they had been waiting this shows

us that there was some waiting period so

the the waiting started at 3 p.m and the

waiting continued and continued and

continued we don’t know when the waiting

finished but this grammar point shows us

that the waiting has finished we’re

finished waiting that’s done we wanted

to talk only about this period of time

the people were waiting in the past so

this is the grammar point that we used

to talk about things that were happening

over a period of time in the past and

then finished

so this is something again we use when

telling stories we’re showing a sequence

of events actually okay let’s move along

then to the last group for today’s

lesson the future tense future tense

let’s start with the future

simple tense future simple tense this is

for actions that are planned or

unplanned for the future

there are actually a lot of different

things we can do to make the future

simple tense some very common ways of

making future simple are through using

will and won’t and going to and not

going to

and earlier in this lesson i mentioned

using the continuous tense the present

continuous tense the ing form of a verb

to make statements about the future also

so there are many ways to make a simple

future statements let’s look at a couple

of examples

first i’ll have a glass of wine this

uses will isle isle is the reduced form

of i will have a glass of wine that’s a

future statement

also he’s going to cook dinner in this

one i’ve used going to to express that

so these are just simple things about

planned or perhaps unplanned like he’s

not going to cook dinner would be an

unplanned action in the future or

something that’s not going to happen in

the future rather okay so let’s go on to

the future continuous tense now future

continuous tense

this is for actions you think

uh will or will not be continuing in the

future in the future something you think

will be continuously happening in the

future let’s look at an example

i’m not going to be working at company a

so here you can see we have going to i’m

not going to

plus we have a verb in the continuous

tense i’m not going to be working at

company a meaning in other words i’m not

going to have a job at company a or i’m

not going to

continue my position at company a in the

future that’s my thought now in the

present about the future so at that time

in the future like in one year for

example i will not be working at that

company or i’m not going to be working

at company a so that’s the idea behind

the future continuous tense okay let’s

move along to the future perfect tense

then so

so future perfect tense refers to

actions that you think will have started

some point in the future so remember

you’re thinking in the present right now

but this grammar point is used to talk

about something something you imagine in

the future

that starts at some point and you think

might

be continuing into the future maybe

something

started and maybe continues this is the

idea here so let’s look at an example

i will have lived in china for two years

i will have lived in china so here i’m

using will to show it’s a future tense

statement i will plus have lived this is

the same thing that we use for the

present perfect tense that we talked

about earlier that past participle plus

have or has but we’re attaching it to a

future tense will i will have lived in

china for two years so when would we use

this so if for example someone asks you

a question about your future

and they say like hmm

so where do you see yourself in like

2020 for example or where do you imagine

you’re going to live in 2020 for example

you could say oh i will have lived in

china for two years so meaning at that

time in 2020 i will have lived in china

for two years so that means not now but

in the future at that point in time in

the future i will have started

living in china and that will have

continued for two years so that’s what

that means that’s a guess about the

future a future time period that

something will have continued

in the future so again quite a

challenging grammar point but

something definitely to look into so

again not used perhaps as much as the

present perfect tense but great for

storytelling and for imagining your

future too okay so let’s move on to the

last point for today’s lesson the future

perfect continuous tense future perfect

continuous

this is a tense that you use similar to

the last one but for actions you think

will or won’t have started and will be

continuing so something that’s going to

have uh started again in the future

something started and the action will

have continued into the future example

i won’t have been eating meat for three

months i won’t have been eating meat for

three months so for this one let’s

imagine

that you decided last month to stop

eating meat so that’s fine actually for

this for this sentence that’s okay you

made a decision last month to stop

eating meat

then someone asks you

um about your progress like how’s it

going

like what are you going to do next month

and you can say to yourself

well at that point next month by next

month in the future

you can use this sentence i won’t so

won’t negative will not i won’t have

been eating meat for three months for

three months so that means from the

point in time i started it in the past

until this point in the future so not

present but into the future

this entire time my behavior not eating

meat

that’s going to have continued so you’re

making a guess about the future so at

this future point in time that behavior

i started in the past will have

continued and continued and continued

and at this point it will be three

months three months total for that

behavior so we use this to talk about

something

some future thing that will have

continued or will be continuing into the

future so will have continued meaning

something that started in the past and

continues into the future or will be

continuing meaning it’s still going into

the future as well so there are a couple

of like very very subtle grammar points

to consider there too so that those are

a couple of maybe tough grammar points

but they’re really good for storytelling

and for talking about your future as

well okay so i know that this was a lot

of information in this lesson if you

have some questions about where to find

more details about any of these grammar

points you can check the youtube channel

our youtube channel has some resources

for these grammar points there’s also

some information on the website if you

don’t see it on the website or on the

youtube channel yet please have a little

bit of patience we are making new stuff

all the time and we’ll hopefully have

this available for you soon so please

keep checking back in with us great so

that’s everything for this lesson i hope

that it was useful for you if you have

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