Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha.
In this video, I'm going to talk about the differences between present perfect tense and past perfect tense. Let's get started.
Okay. First, I want to talk about present perfect tense. We're going to look at two uses of this grammar point. First, we use present perfect tense to express an action or a condition that happened at some time in the past. So, this is a non-specific action, yeah. If we imagine this on a timeline, it might look like this. So, here's the timeline we're going to use for this lesson. We have the past, and the present, and the future here, yeah. If we imagine this use of present perfect, which we use for life experience -- like travel experience or job experience, it might look like this. So, I have in blue dots here, all of this space before the present, and a question mark here, too. So, this question mark refers to not knowing or it not being important when an action happened, yeah. So, this is the first use of present perfect tense. To talk about something that happened just sometime in the past, when is not important, or we don't know.
Now, let's look at the second use of present perfect. We use this to express an action that started in the past and continues to the present. Or, the effects of the action continue to the present. So, what does this look like on a timeline? Here, in red, is this use of present perfect. So, we mark the start point here with this check. And then, the wavy line shows the action is continuing. This continues to the present. So, this type of present perfect is used to show things that started sometime in the past, and that are still true now or they're continuing now. Okay? So, let's look at how we create present perfect tense, and then we'll take a look at some example sentences and break them down.
So, first with present perfect tense. You need to think about your subject. If your subject is I, you, we, or they, we follow it with "have." To make the sentence negative, "not" goes in this position. And then, we follow this with a past participle verb. If the subject of the sentence is he, she, or it, we follow it with "has." Again, "not" is in this position after "has." And again, we end with the past participle verb form. To make a present perfect continuous structure, we use "been" in the past participle verb form and follow it with a continuous verb. So, you can think of replacing this part, past participle verb, with "been," which is the past participle form of "be," and follow it with the -ing form of a verb.
Okay. So, let's take a look at some example sentences and break down what's happening here. First sentence, "I have been to France." "I have been to France." Here, my subject is "I." We follow with "have," past participle verb is "been," so "be" becomes "been." "I have been to France." This sentence reflects use number 1 of present perfect tense. So, the speaker here is talking about general life experience, "I have been to France." When? It's not important, or maybe they don't remember. They were very young. But, they just want to express that life experience. "I have been to France," sometime before now. That's use number 1 of present perfect.
Let's look at another example. "She has not finished her homework." "She has not finished her homework." Here, we have a negative. So, this sentence is "she," followed by "has." In this case, the negative, "she has not." Past participle verb is "finished." "She has not finished her homework." So, this sentence shows a negative condition or a negative experience. Something that is not true. In this case, she has not finished her homework at any time before the present. "She has not finished her homework." You might also see a sentence like this with "yet" at the end. "She has not finished her homework yet." That shows we expect she's going to finish her homework, but it has not happened yet. So, this expresses that lack of life experience. No experience in this case. In this case, not being finished with homework. Okay. "She has not finished her homework."
Alright. Let's look at the next example sentence. "We have worked here for five years." We have worked here for five years. It follows this pattern, "We have worked here for five years." This sentence includes this "for five years" point. So, "for five years," or you might also see a "since" point-in-time structure, helps us to know that it's talking about a continuing action or a continuing condition. That's use number 2 of present perfect. "We have worked here for five years." This shows us five years ago was the start point for the action. And then, the action continued to the present. "We have worked here for five years." A common question about a sentence like this is, can I use the continuous form here? Like, "We have been working here for five years." Yes. There are some verbs that are okay to use in this form, and in the continuous form. Some very common examples are "live" and "work." So, this sentence would be okay in continuous as well. "We have worked here for five years," So, this shows our continuing action and the length of time the action has continued.
Okay. Let's look at one more example sentence then. "They have not been sleeping well." They have not been sleeping well. Here, we have a negative and a continuous form. So, they have not been sleeping well. What does this mean? So, this means starting from some point in the past -- we don't know exactly when, maybe they have not been sleeping well recently, or they have not been sleeping well lately, would be common. This condition, "not sleeping well," has continued for some period of time. "They have not been sleeping well." So, we used present perfect in these two ways to talk about general life experience, or no life experience, and to talk about actions and conditions that started in the past and continue to the present.
So, with this in mind let's look now at past perfect tense and see how we use this one. Again, I want to talk about two uses of past perfect here. So, the first one we use past perfect to express an action or condition that happened before another past action. So, that means we use past perfect to show the sequence of past actions, one action happening before another action. We use past perfect to help us do this. On a timeline, we can imagine it like this. Here's our past present and future. Use number 1 is here in blue.
So, we use past perfect to represent action 1 in this situation. Action 1 happens, action 2 happens. So, we want to talk about two past tense actions. We describe the first action or condition with past perfect tense. We use simple past tense for the second action. We'll see an example sentence that shows us this later.
Okay. Now, let's look at the second use here. This is in continuous and past perfect continuous. So, we use past perfect continuous to express an action or condition that started in the past and continued until another past action changed or interrupted it. So, what does this mean, "until another past action changed or interrupted it"? Let's look at this on the timeline again. We have action 1 and action 2 here. So, with this use, action 1 started here at the checkpoint. This is where action 1 started, the wavy line shows the action continued in the past. Then, action 2 happened. Something caused action 1 to stop, or maybe it caused action 2 to change in some way. So, we use simple past tense for action 2. Action 1 expresses the continuing past action, action 2 expresses the change. So, again, we'll see an example sentence of this in just a moment.
Alright. Let's quickly refresh our minds on how to make this grammar, and then we'll go to our example sentences. With this grammar, we don't need to worry about different subjects like I, you, and he, and she. We can just use subject, plus "had," to make it negative we use "not" in this position, and then we end with a past participle verb. To create the continuous progressive form of this grammar, we use "been" in this position, and follow with an -ing verb, the continuous form of the verb. So, let's take a look at some example sentences, and break down what's happening.
First one, "I had been to France by the time I graduated from college." "I had been to France by the time I graduated from college." So, what are the two actions in this sentence? First, "I had been to France." So, here is my past perfect action, I/had/been. In this case, "been" as my past participle verb. "I had been to France." And the second action, "by the time I graduated," here's my past tense verb. "By the time I graduated from college," simple past tense. So, this sentence shows us two situations, two past situations or actions. "I had been to France," so going to France happened first. And then, going to college happened second. So, we show this sequence with our grammar. Past perfect first, simple past, second.
Let's look at another example. "She hadn't finished her homework, yet, but her friends came over." "She hadn't finished her homework, yet, but her friends came over anyway," maybe as kids do. So, what's happening in this sentence? Here, we have a negative. I've used the reduced form, "had not" becomes "hadn't." I've reduced it here, "she hadn't finished her homework, yet." That's one -- action 1, or condition 1. And, second, "but her friends came over." So, "came over" here is in simple past tense, "her friends came over." So, there's my first condition, not being finished with homework. "She hadn't finished her homework, yet, but her friends came over anyway." So, we show the sequence of actions with this grammar point.
Okay. Lastly, let's take a look at some sentences that use past perfect continuous. Let's see how we use this. First, "We had been working in silence for two hours when the phone rang." "We had been working in silence for two hours when the phone rang." So, what are the two actions or conditions here? First, "we had been working." So, I have this "been working," continuous structure. "We had been working," that's 1. And, "the phone rang," here's my past tense verb. So, "ring" becomes "rang," in simple past tense, right? So, this sentence shows us if we use two here, action 1, and "working in silence." So, here's my condition, "working in silence" was action number 1 or condition number 1. And then, my past tense action happened, "the phone rang." So, in this case, I want to describe the change in condition, "working in silence for a long time." In this case, "two hours," and then, "the phone rings" to stop the silence, right? We mark that with simple past tense. So, we use this continuous, followed by simple past tense structure to communicate this.
Okay. Let's look at one more example. "He had not been sleeping well for weeks, so he went to the doctor." "He had not been sleeping well for weeks, so he went to the doctor." So, in this case, we have a negative here. "He had not been sleeping well for weeks." So, here is where the condition starts. So, in this case, "not sleeping well." This condition continued for weeks, so he went to the doctor. Simple past tense action which marks a change in the condition. So, we use past perfect continuous for the first one, and simple past tense again for the second action.
So, you can kind of see a theme, I hope. We use past perfect together with simple past tense to show a sequence of actions. One action happening before another -- where there's just two things in a row. Or, one action that continued and was stopped. So, we use past perfect to do this. We use present perfect to talk about our general life experience and to talk about things that started in the past and continue to the present as well as continuing beyond perhaps. Thanks very much for watching this lesson, and I will see you again soon. Bye!

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