| Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about three ways to use "have been" and "has been." Let's get started. |
| Okay. First, I want to talk about using "have been" and "has been" to express travel experience. So, if you have studied present perfect tense, you know that we use "have been" and "has been" to talk about something that happened in the past, but we don't use a specific point in time to talk about it. We don't say, "last year," or "last week," or "last summer." We just want to mention that we had that experience, or we didn't have that experience. So, when we talk about our travel experience, we use this kind of grammar with "have been" or "has been." Which one we choose depends on the subject of our sentence. If the subject of our sentence is I, you, we, or they, we use "have been" after the subject. "I have been," "You have been," "They have been," "We have been." If the subject of your sentence is he, she, or it, we use "has been." "He has been," "She has been," "It has been." So, depending on the subject, your conjugation will change. "Have" or "has," that's the difference with this use here. And actually, this is something that applies -- that is the same for all of the points I'm going to talk about today. |
| A key difference, however, is at the end of the expression. If you're using "have been" or "has been" to express your travel experience, follow this part of the sentence with "to," the preposition "to," which shows us movement. It marks movement. And then, we use a place. This can be a city, a country, a region. Please note, however, we cannot use the word "there." "I have been to there," is incorrect. "He has been to there," is incorrect. If you want to use "there," just remove "to" from the sentence. "I have been there," "She has been there." So, please keep this in mind. "To," plus a specific place is correct, or no "to," plus "there." Let's look at some example sentences now. |
| First, with the subject "I." "I have been to London." I have been to London. My subject is "I," so I use "have been." "To" is my preposition. I'm using "London" as the specific place, a city here. In another example, "We have been to Egypt." We have been to Egypt. My subject is "we," so again, I choose "have been." I use the preposition "to," and "Egypt" as my place, my specific place. Let's change the subject now. "He" is my subject. "He has been to New York City." He has been to New York City. Subject is "he." So, I choose "has been," instead of "have been." I follow this with "to New York City," my preposition "to," and my specific place. |
| In the next example, I want to talk about the way that native speakers reduce sounds in sentences like these. So, when we use "have been" or "has been," we typically make the sounds shorter. That's what "reduce" means, to make something smaller, to make something shorter. We reduce sounds in sentences like these by making "has been" into "Z" been. So, in this case, "She has been," if I follow this pattern, reduces to "she's been." She's been. In the full sentence, "She's been to Barcelona." She's been to Barcelona. So, we know that this is not "she is," because "been" is the word that follows it. "She is," would be followed by an adjective. Like, "She is beautiful," or "She is busy." "She's been," however, shows us that it's this present perfect pattern. That's how we know what this Z sound means. Is it a "has" or is it an "is"? Look at the word that follows the sound. So, "She's been to Barcelona." |
| Let's then look, or rather, let's next look at how to make negative expressions. So, when we want to make a negative with this same grammar, we need to include a "never." Never. So, that means at no point in the past have I had this experience. At no point in the past did I travel to that place. To do that, we place "never" between "have been" -- or rather, between "have" and "been," and between "has" and "been." So, right here in the middle is where we'll place the "never." Everything else about the sentence remains the same. Let's try. Here, "I've…" "I have never been to Africa." "I've never been to Africa." Here, I've got "I've." I've. So, subject is "I," have this reduces to "I've." I've. And then, "never" comes between "have" and "been." "I've never been to Africa." In the next example sentence, I changed the subject back to "he," and I've reduced it. "He has," becomes "he's." Negative, "never." "He's never been to China." "He's never been to China." So, again, the "never" comes between "has" and "been." |
| Finally, one more example, "She's never been to Canada." "She's never been to Canada." So, a big point here is to try to reduce these sounds in your speech. It's going to sound much more natural if you make these sounds smaller. If you make the sounds shorter. If you always say, "He has been to," "She has been to," it sounds stiff and unnatural. So, try to make sure that you reduce these sounds when you're talking. Also, again, please don't forget this preposition. Lots of learners say something like, "I've never been Africa," "He's never been China." Don't forget that "to" before the place name. Okay. With this in mind, let's continue to point two for this lesson. |
| Point two: We use "have been" and "has been" to describe an action that started in the past and continues to the present. And we do this with an -ing ending verb. So, that means a verb in the progressive or a verb in the continuous form. A verb that has that -ing ending. So, when we make our expressions with this type of grammar, they follow the same pattern as the first part here. Depending on our subject, we need to choose "have been" or "has been," nothing has changed here. But, the part to focus on is the ending of the expression. So, here, after "have been" or "has been," we use a verb in the -ing form. And then, in most cases, you'll see a time expression. We'll use "for" or "since," plus a time expression. |
| So, why do we do this? Let's look at this timeline to understand what this grammar communicates. This grammar is expressing an action that started at some point in the past. On this timeline, this star marks the present now. This direction is the future, and this direction is the past. This point here marks the start of an action. Then, the action continues to the present. So, that means it's something that's happening now. It started in the past, and it's still going on. So, we mark this point in the past with either "for" or "since." So, let's take a look at some example sentences to understand the differences between using "for" and "since. |
| First, "I have been teaching for about five minutes." "I have been teaching for about five minutes." So, here again, subject "I," so I choose "have been." I use a verb in the -ing form, "teaching" in this case. So, I'm expressing my action now. And, the grammar tells us that it's something that started in the past and continues. So, this is an action really that I have been doing for maybe about five minutes. So, let's look here. I've used "for," in this sentence. I follow it with "about five minutes." So, when you use "for" before your time expression, you need to use a time expression that expresses a length of time: five minutes, one hour, 20 days. So, you need a length of time after "for." In this case, I've also used "about." About. So, I don't know exactly how much time has passed since I started this lesson. But, "for about five minutes." |
| Another example, "You have been listening since this video started." "You have been listening since this video started." In this sentence, "you" is the subject, so I choose "have been" for this part of the sentence. "Listening" is my -ing verb. And then, I've used "since." "Since," here. So, please notice with "since," we use a specific point in the past, not a length of time. "Since this video started." Since this video started. So, both of these express the same idea that something started in the past and continues to the present. In this case, with the first example sentence, "I have been teaching for about five minutes," I'm marking the start point of the action with this "five minutes ago," is another way to say it. But, I'm marking the length of time really. That's what I'm focusing on here, this length of time. In the "since" sentence, "You have been listening since this video started," I'm marking the starting point. That's the difference, "since this video started." So, "for" marks this length of time. We use "for" with a length of time, "since" marks the starting point. That's the difference here. They communicate the same idea. You can choose whichever you prefer. It's completely up to you. |
| So, let's look at another example. "He has been sleeping for 13 hours." "He has been sleeping for 13 hours." Subject is "he," so I choose "has been." My -ing verb is "sleeping." And, I've used "for 13 hours." I'm describing the length of time, "for 13 hours." Also, when you use a length of time, like hours or minutes or days, please make sure to use the plural form: 13 hours, five days, and so on. Another example, she, "She has been working since early this morning." "She has been working since early this morning." "Since" marks my starting point, "since early this morning." So, that's where it began, and it continues. |
| Let's look now at a few examples of negative sentences. How do we make a negative sentence with this grammar? Example one, "I have not been eating meat recently." "I have not been eating meat recently." You'll notice I'm ending the sentence not with "for" or "since" here. Instead, you'll commonly see negatives in this grammar finishing with an expression. Like, "lately" or "recently," or maybe "these days," something like that. We use this less commonly than we use the positive form. We use this to talk about something that's maybe regular or an expected action that, for some reason, we are not doing now. So, you can imagine it's something that we are not doing that started in the past, and that continues to the present. So, in this example, "I have not been eating meat recently." That means, at some point in the past. So, "recently" means just some point in the last few days, or the last few weeks, or the last few months. It's a very vague, not clear term. So, that means from some point here, until now and continuing, I did not eat meat, I have not been eating meat. So, we might expect for some people that it's maybe normal, or it's very common to eat meat, and we want to express this change. So, we describe that change with this negative pattern. |
| Let's look at another example. "He hasn't been feeling well." He hasn't been feeling well. Here, I've used the reduced form, "He has not been feeling well." So, you might have noticed that when I'm using this grammar to make my sentence negative, I'm using "not" between "have" and "been," or "has" and "been." This is different from point one in this lesson, where we used "never" between the two words. To make this grammar negative, use "not." Not. When we reduce it, it becomes "haven't," with have not, or "hasn't," with has not. So, this sentence, "He hasn't been feeling well." He hasn't been feeling well. This is something you might hear in response to a question like, "Oh, how's your brother?" or "How's your dad?" Asking about someone's health. You can respond with, "He hasn't been feeling well." So, that means from some point in the past, actually, we don't know. But, from some point in the past, this person started not feeling well, and that has continued to the present. So, this sounds rather serious actually, "He hasn't been feeling well." So, maybe someone who has not been attending work, or someone who has not been coming to school. So, we could express the reason for that with something like this. So, we use the negative to do that. So, that means this situation, or rather this feeling, has continued from the past, and into the present. |
| Finally, one more example. "We haven't been exercising lately." We haven't been exercising lately. So, again this kind of sentence refers to an action that was common, or that was expected for the speaker. So, maybe the speaker has a long history of exercise or good exercise habits. And, the speaker and someone else, they want to express that there has been a change. So, they might say, "We haven't been exercising lately." So, they would use the negative form to do that. So, this grammar is used to talk about an action that started in the past and continues to the present. Or, some action that was typical or expected in the past, that is no longer happening for some reason. |
| Okay. So, let's compare this then to point three, which is very similar but we have some grammatical changes to consider. Number three, we use "have been" and "has been" to describe a status that started in the past and continues to the present. We do this with an adjective, with an adjective. So, very similar to point two, something that started in the past and continues to now. We have the same idea, but instead of an action, like "teaching" or "listening," it's a status. It's a condition. We use some adjectives to do that, and I'll share with you like some very, very common ones. We can't use all adjectives to do this. So, again, we follow the same structure for the beginning of the sentence depending on your subject, we choose "have been" or "has been." After this part, we use an adjective. |
| Following this, it's very common to see a word like "lately," "recently," or "the last few days," "the last few weeks," "the last few months." So, we're using these expressions to show that the specific time is not important. We just want to talk about recent events, or the last period of time, the last kind of recent period of time. So, let's look at some common adjectives that we use in this pattern. First, "I have been busy lately." "Busy" is a very common adjective to use in this expression. So, again, this expresses that the person, the speaker here, in recent days, in the last -- I don't know, recent period, has been busy. So, at some point in time, they started to be busy and that has continued until the current conversation. Again, we do reduce the sound to, "I've been busy lately." "I've been busy lately." |
| Another one, "I've been sick the last few days." "I've been sick the last few days." Here, "I have the last few days." Now, you'll notice I'm not using "for" in this expression. It's kind of common to drop that here. "I've been sick for the last few days," is totally correct. But, in this case, as I've done here, it's also common to drop it sometimes. So, "I've been sick the last few days." That means, in this time period, I have been sick. So, a few days ago it started, and it continues to today. Let's change the subject. "He has been grumpy recently." He has been grumpy recently. "Grumpy" is an adjective that means someone who is in a bad mood, like they seem really negative. They're not mean or evil or bad people, just they're in a bad mood, grumpy. They're a little bit difficult to deal with. "He has been grumpy recently." So, that means from this point in time in the past, from this recent point in the past, until now and continuing, he has been grumpy. |
| Another one, "She's been really happy the last few weeks." "She's been really happy the last few weeks." So, I've reduced "she has," to "she's." "She's been really," so I'm emphasizing my adjective here, "happy." You can change the adjective like level with words like "really" or "very." "She's been very happy," or "She's been really happy the last few weeks." So here, again, I could use "for" if I wanted to. This makes it a little more casual. So, "She's been really happy the last few weeks." |
| Let's take a look last at some negatives then. First one, "I have not been very busy lately." "I have not been very busy lately." So, again, we would use an expression like this if it's regular for us. Like, in the past, it was regular for us to be busy. But, recently or lately, I have not been very busy. So, we kind of use this to show that there's some change, as we talked about with point number two. Another one, "He hasn't been very friendly lately." "He hasn't been very friendly lately." So, again, this kind of expresses a change. Someone who is usually very friendly, or who has been very friendly in the past, is not very friendly right now and has not been very friendly lately. So, we use a negative to do that. Again, as with point number two in this lesson, we use "not" to make the expression negative. "I have not been," "he has not been." To reduce, we use "I haven't been," and "he hasn't" or "she hasn't been." |
| Last example, "She hasn't been very talkative the last few days." She hasn't been very talkative the last few days. "Talkative" refers to someone who likes to talk a lot, who likes to share a lot. So, again, this would be used to describe a person who is usually talkative. But, for the last few days, is not talkative. So, we tend to use these to describe some kind of change from a regular or an expected behavior. |
| So, this is an introduction to when to use "have been" and "has been" for a few different situations. So, I hope that this was helpful for you. Thanks very much for watching this lesson, and I will see you again soon. Bye-bye. |
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