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
if you are watching live and as a
comment if you’re watching
later so uh we’ll begin in just a couple
minutes we’ll give everyone a chance to
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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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okay uh with that let’s go to
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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
this video give it a little thumbs up
hit the thumbs up button
and share this video so other people can
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for us also if you missed it too i
talked about
the free pdfs that you can download from
the link below the video video if you’re
watching on youtube
or above the video if you’re watching on
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a cab there’s some questions uh and some
things you can use
uh this is the family and relatives
pedia
there’s some expressions for the first
time you meet someone’s family too so
you can check these kinds of things
there are so many of these so you can
choose a topic that’s
interesting or helpful for you uh and
practice
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couple different topics this one’s
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i think there’s probably like 25 maybe
they’re all free so check them out
i hope it is helpful for your vocabulary
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