English Grammar: Past Simple Time Markers

1,072,367 views ・ 2013-09-16

English with Emma


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Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's lesson, we are going to talk about something many
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students have difficulty with. We are going to talk about the past simple -- or simple
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past -- tense and time markers, which can help students to figure out what tense to
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use. So I'll explain this in a second. First, my question: What is the past simple?
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What is the simple past? Well, "I ate two cookies." The present tense: "I eat two cookies.
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Every day, I eat two cookies." So in the past, we would say "ate". So usually, simple past
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are verbs, actions that end in "-ed". So we have "cleaned" -- "I cleaned the floor." "I
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cooked spaghetti." "I baked a cake." "I worked all night." These are all "-ed" -- past verbs.
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We also have some things called "irregular verbs", like "ate" -- "ate", "lay". What are
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some other irregular verbs? "I ran to school yesterday." "I run -- right now, I am running.
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Every day I run to school. Yesterday I ran to school." So these are irregular verbs.
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So if you look at my timeline, we have the future. What's the future? Everything after
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today. So this would be tomorrow. Maybe this would be a week from now. Maybe this would
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be 2020, and then 2050. So this is the future. This line right here represents now. Today
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it is the year 2013, okay? Maybe when you watch this, maybe it will be 2014, but right
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now, as I film, it is 2013. So that's the present; that's now. This is all the past,
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okay? This is all before. This is 1990, 1950, 2000. This is yesterday, so things that happened
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before. So when we talk about the past tense, we're talking about here. Okay. So now, let
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me tell you what "time markers" are. Many students, they hear the present -- present
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perfect: "I've never been to China." "I have eaten four cakes today." They hear this, and
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then they hear the simple past, "I ate four cakes." Which one do you use? Simple past?
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Present perfect? And teachers love to test on this. So how do you know? Well, one way
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is using things called "time markers". These are our time markers right here. So we have,
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"yesterday", "the other day", "last week", "last month", "last year", "when", "just now",
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"ago", and "in". So these are all words that we can use with the past simple or simple
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past. You do not use these words with the future. You do not use these words with any
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of the presents. You use them with the simple past or past simple.
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Okay. So let's do some examples. I could put "yesterday" here. "Yesterday, I ate two cookies."
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Okay? I could say, "Yesterday, I ate two cookies." "The other day, I ate two cookies." "Last
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week, I ate two cookies." "Last month, I ate two cookies." "Last year, I ate two cookies."
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Even if this isn't written, if it's a test: "I _________ two cookies." "I eat two cookies"?
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"I have eaten two cookies"? As soon as I see "yesterday", I know: "Yesterday -- ate." "The
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other day -- ate." "Last week -- ate." Okay? So these are your clues. So memorize them.
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Associate them with the simple past. Now, we have "when" here. What do I mean by
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"when"? "I ate two cookies when -- when I was eight years old." "I ate two cookies when
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I broke up with my boyfriend." Okay? So you can use -- when you see "when -- blah, blah,
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blah", "when I -- blah, blah, blah", this is a clue. This should be -- what should it
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be? Simple past or past simple; not present perfect.
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"Just now": "Just now, I ate two cookies." "Just now, I went shopping." "Just now, I
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made a video." Okay? So again, "just now" -- what is it? That's right. Past simple or
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simple past. "Ago": "ago"? This is when you're talking
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about a certain amount of time. "Two years ago, I went to Thailand." "Five years ago,
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I went to France." "Two days ago, I ate two cookies." Okay? So there's usually a number
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in either years, days, weeks -- "ago". As soon as you see "ago" -- past. Finally, the
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last one we will talk about today: "in". "In 1990 -- what happened in 1990? In 1990, I
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was a little kid." "In 2000, I finished grade 8." "In 2009, I think, I finished university."
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So if you see "in" with a year, what is it? It's simple past. Okay. Very good.
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And what do all of these things have in common? Again, they are talking about -- if we look
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at this -- a moment in time, okay? They're looking at a moment. They're not looking at
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this whole period of time. They are not looking at a long period of time. They're looking
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at a moment. All right, so let's do some questions to see how much you guys remember.
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Okay. So let's do some questions together. I have a blank; I will tell you the verb;
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I want you to tell me is it simple past? Is it -- it doesn't matter if you don't know
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what it is, but just tell me if it's simple past or not simple past, okay? Based on the
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time words you see. So let's get started. No. 1: "Yesterday, I ______ a movie." So the
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verb is "see". "Yesterday, I see a movie"; "Yesterday, I've seen a movie"; or "Yesterday,
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I saw a movie"? What do you think it is? Do you think it's simple past or present or future?
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It is simple past: "saw". How do we know it's simple past? We have our key clue: "Yesterday".
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Okay? So let's try No. 2: "Just now, I ______ my
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homework." So we can say, "do my homework", "did my homework", "have done my homework".
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Do you think this is an example of simple past or something else? Let's see. Here is
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our clue: "just now". Was this one of the words you saw before? It was. So what does
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that mean? "Just now I did -- sorry about my writing. Just now I did my homework." So
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again, because we see this, we know what form the verb should take.
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No. 3: "I _______ to China before." What's our time expression here? We have the word
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"before". Here is our clue. Was "before" one of the words on the list? Do you think "I
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went to China before"? Or "I have been to China before?" What do you think? It is not
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simple present. No simple present. I'm just going to put an "X" here. I won't explain
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which tense it is, but just know "before" is not simple present -- not simple present.
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What am I saying? Simple past, okay? It is not simple past.
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"Last week I _______ shopping." Okay? So what is the clue here? Here is our expression,
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our time expression: "last week". Is this simple past or is this something else? "Last
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week I go shopping"; "Last week I went shopping"; "Last week I have been shopping"? What do
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you think? If you said "simple past", you are correct. "I went shopping." Good. Okay.
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No. 5: "At the moment, I ______ to school." So we can have different verbs for this, but
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this is our clue: "At the moment". Was this on the list before, "at the moment"? If you
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think, "No, it wasn't on the list", you are correct. "At the moment, I went to school"?
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No. "At the moment, I go to school." So this is not simple past.
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No. 6: "I never ______ French." So "I never" -- we'll say the verb is "learn". Do you think
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it's, "I never learned French"? "I've never learned French"? What do you think? Is it
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simple past? Here is our clue word: "Never". It is not a simple past sentence. If you see
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"never" -- not simple past. It would be "I've never learned French."
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No. 7, last one: "Four years ago, I _______ to Toronto." So we'll say the verb is "move".
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Do you think it's "I moved to Toronto", "I moved to Toronto", or "I have moved"? What
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is our clue here? Can you find the clue? Ding, ding, ding, ding! "Ago". "Four years ago I..."
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-- what is it? It is simple past. "...I moved to Toronto." So again, when you see these
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words, you know what it is: simple past or past simple. It doesn't matter which one you
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call it. Different people use different terms. Okay.
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So the main thing I want you to remember from this video is there are expressions you can
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use to help you know what tense you should write the verb. Another thing I want to say
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is these things you really need to practice. You need to practice, practice, practice,
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and get used to thinking of "yesterday -- oh, simple past". "Never -- not simple past."
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So if you want to do more practice, I would like to invite you to our website: www.engvid.com.
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On this website, I will have a list of different questions similar to this where you can to
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a lot more practice. Okay, so until next time, take care, and thanks for watching.
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