AGO & FROM NOW - Talking about time in English

Hi. James from English. I was just reading the paper today. I got this paper three days

ago. Today's Sunday. What day was that? Well, today, we're going to learn to talk about

time. If you're an advanced student, you might think this is a bit of a slower lesson or

you may know this. That's fine. Please watch. Maybe you'll learn something about sentence

structure in English when we talk about time. If you're a new student, this will be very

helpful for you to learn how to speak about time. Okay?

Let's go to the board. This is a Thomas Turtle lesson, which means it's a tutorial. In that

case, it means we will go over the lesson, and I will teach you how to do this, and I

want you to do this at home. So a good thing for you to do is copy this out. I know it

might take a second or two. Don't worry. Your computer won't go anywhere, and I'm not going

anywhere. Just press pause, and then write out this. Sorry. Write this out. Okay. So

you've had a couple seconds. You've written it out. Let's do it.

Now, in English, we talk about time. Things happen in the future. Things have happened

in the past, and we need to speak about it accurately. What I mean by "accurately" is

we need to be exact. I need to know what you mean. A lot of students, because different

languages have this in it, say "before". They talk about the past, and they say "before".

I do this two months before. I was there before. In English, we don't use "before" like that.

We use the word "ago". For us, "ago" means the past. "Two days ago", "three months ago",

and that means the past. In the future, we often use "from now", and that means from

this position, we will keep moving. That means this is now, and we'll go from now into the

future.

If you look here, I have "from now", and I have "f" and "f" to help remind you. "F"

means future, "from now". Two days from now will be Tuesday. Today is Sunday. Now, this

is nice, but then you say, "Why are we doing this chart?" I'm going to help you so you

can speak very, very fluently to an English person, and they will know exactly what you

mean.

Here are the days of the week. You will notice how we move. When we say the past, we go backwards.

If we're at Sunday, we would go Saturday, Friday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday

to the past, and that is how we count. Similar to "five", "four", "three", "two", "one".

In the future, we go forward, so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Future goes forward,

so again, another "f" word. "Forward" and "future".

I'm going to give you something to help you as well, just to help you with the days. Tuesday.

If you want to remember the difference between Tuesday and Thursday, just think Tuesday has

the sound of "two", which is the second day of the week. You're welcome.

All right, so let's go back to the board. I said "today". I said, "If today is", okay?

This formula can be used for months as well. You can talk about days or months. So if we

say, "If today is Sunday", and we want to talk about the future, let's say, "three days",

okay? "Three days". We would say, "Three days", we said "future". When we look, "future" means

to go down in time. We notice "future" means "from now", so then we have to say either

this one or that one. Which should we use? I want "future". Remember, "future" is "from

now", so then I would say, "from now", and I would go, "One, two, three, it would be

Wednesday." We don't talk about Sunday. This is today. It's now. We go, "future". "One,

two, three". Three days from now, and we have to choose. Do we say, "It was Wednesday" or

"It will be Wednesday"? We look for the future, and we say, "It will be Wednesday." Now, look

at the board. If today is Sunday, three days from now, it will be Wednesday. Did you see

how we did that? Let's try another example. This time, I won't tell you the date. I will

put in some information. I want you to figure out what the answer will be.

We have a problem. We know what the new day is, and we know how many days, but we don't

know what the first day is. Let's go to the board. We said Saturday. We don't count this.

Three days from now, so we'd have to go back, "One, two, three, Thursday, Friday, Wednesday."

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday would be the day. If today is Wednesday, three days

from now will be Saturday. Do you like that? We can work either from the day or from the

future. That was awkward, though. Don't you think that was difficult, starting at Saturday

to find out Wednesday? There must be a better way of doing this. I think we have a better

way. What if we did this? Instead of talking about the final day, why don't we use the

word "ago"? "Ago" means the past, so we can talk in the present about the past. I like

it, too. It makes life much easier. If today is Saturday, three days ago, what was it?

We go back. Today is Saturday, Thursday, Friday, Wednesday. It's the same information, but

it's easier to say because we can start with where we are and know where we will be. Do

you like that? We've gone from future, which was from now, to "ago", which is the past.

Let's do another one for the past. I like Saturday. It's a holiday in Canada. We don't

have to go to work, so I'm staying on Saturday, and I'll talk about the past. This is a tricky

one. Be careful. If today is Saturday, seven days ago, do we say "it will be" or "it was"?

If today is Saturday, seven days ago, do we say "it will be" or "it was"? "It was." The

answer is right here. Make sure you pay attention. Look. The answer is here. We say for the past.

Seven days ago, it was -- well, there are only seven days in the week. When we say it

was seven days ago, it was Saturday, in Canada or America or in England, they would never

say this. We have an easier way of saying it. We just say "a week ago". When we say

"a week ago", we are saying, "This day was the same day seven days ago." No one would

actually say "seven days ago", blah, blah, blah, blah. They would say, "One week ago,

I was doing this. A week ago, this happened." We all know that we're talking about the same

day seven days ago. Good? Easy? Great.

What I would like you to do is practice. I know you wrote this out, and I will erase

it again. You can take a look. You can practice at home by yourself or practice with a friend.

That's a great way to learn English. You will give them the day and ask them in two days,

in three days, in five days, and they can figure out if you say "ago" in the past or

from now in the future. Now, some of you are advanced students. If you're an advanced student,

I'm going to teach you one more form. I will put it at the end. Okay? We can change this

whole thing. When we want to talk about the future, you can also do this one. You can

say "in", "in three days". You don't have to say this part. You would say this part.

"In three days, it will be", and that would be the future. So "in" can replace, and it

will be the future. Give that a try. Once you've learned "ago" and "from now", when

you're ready, try "in" for the future. But you must put "in" in the first place, in the

first part of the sentence. That would go like this. "If this is Saturday, in three

days it will be", we go to the future, "Tuesday". Okay? Have a good day. Give it a try. Hope

you enjoyed the lesson. Come on back for Thomas the Turtle. Where is he? Thomas the Turtle.

He's not looking so good these days. I'm sure he'll look better. I'll give him a hairpiece.

I'll give him some hair. Now he's Thomas the Handsome Turtle. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed

this lesson. Come back. We'll have other lessons and tutorial lessons to help you. Okay? Make

sure you practice at home. Oh, and before I go, of course, this may be Sunday, Monday

or Tuesday, wherever you are, but you still need to go to www.engvid.com to get this and

other lessons. Have a good day.