PRESENT SIMPLE TENSE – Part 1 – Where to Use Simple Present – Basic English Grammar

1,084,361 views ・ 2017-04-23

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Do you know where to use the present simple tense
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and how to use it correctly?
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In this lesson, I’m going to teach you the four main uses of this tense,
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and how to avoid common mistakes that many people
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make with it.
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So let’s start.
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Welcome to my series of lessons on the tenses.
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Before we start, as always, if you have any questions
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at all, just ask me in the comments section below,
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and I will talk to you there.
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OK, in this lesson, I will teach you the four main uses
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of the present simple tense – that is, to talk about
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habits and routines, permanent situations, facts
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about the world, and finally, the very important –
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talking about states with state verbs.
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And there’s a quiz at the end to check your understanding.
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Alright well first – what is the present simple tense?
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Well, quite simply, it’s the most basic tense in English
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and it’s the first tense that you will learn in any
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English course that you take.
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It’s very easy: you just take a subject and you add a verb.
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A subject is a word like I – You – We – They – He
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– She – It – or a name like Mike or Emma.
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Let’s take ‘I’ for now.
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And let’s add a verb – say ‘drink.’
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Let’s complete this sentence so it sounds meaningful – “I
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drink tea every morning.”
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And there you have the present simple tense.
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Now, what does that sentence mean?
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Well, when I say “I drink tea every morning” you know that
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I do the action regularly.
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Now you see a timeline on the screen.
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Let’s say this side is the past, over on that side is
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the future, and in the middle is right now.
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So you know that I drink tea on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,
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Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and so on.
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You can see that it repeats.
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So this is a habit.
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And this sentence shows us the first use of the present
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simple tense – that is to talk about habits and routines,
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things that we do regularly or repeatedly.
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Now it would be wrong to say “I’m drinking tea every
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morning” – because this is a habit, and for habits you
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must use the present simple tense.
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Alright, here are some more examples: “Mike visits his
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parents on weekends.”
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Again, this is something that Mike does regularly – every weekend.
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In our next example, “Emma usually has dinner at eight thirty.”
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Meaning that it’s part of her routine to eat dinner at
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eight thirty every day.
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In both of these sentences, you should NOT use the continuous form – remember that.
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OK, I want you to notice one other thing in these examples.
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You can see how frequently or how often the action happens
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– every day, on weekends etc.
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When we talk about habits or routines, we normally use these kinds of
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expressions.
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The word ‘every’, for example, is very common – in phrases
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like every morning, afternoon, every day, week, month etc.
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I said “I drink tea every morning.”
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Another example is “They go to Mexico on vacation every year.”
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You can also use prepositions like ‘on’ or ‘in’.
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As in “Mike visits his parents on weekends.”
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or “Dennis goes fishing on Fridays.”
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And then there are expressions like once a week, three times
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a year etc.
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For example, “We visit the dentist twice a year for
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a checkup.”
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Apart from these expressions, we also use what are called
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‘frequency adverbs’.
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If you remember, one of our examples was “Emma usually has dinner at eight thirty.”
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The word ‘usually’ is a frequency adverb.
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There are many others like this – if you do something all the time, that is
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one hundred percent of the time, then you can use ‘always’.
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For example, “Meena always walks to work.”
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That means she never takes the bus or she never drives
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to work.
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But hey, there’s another frequency adverb there
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– ‘never’.
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And that means that something happens zero percent of the time.
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It does not happen at all.
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Then there are other adverbs in the middle – you see
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that some of these are positive like ‘usually’ or ‘often’,
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some are more neutral like ‘sometimes’ – when I say
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“Alejandro sometimes plays video games.”
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It’s like 50-50.
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And then there are frequency adverbs that are
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negative like ‘rarely ’ – “I rarely watch TV” for instance
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– meaning I watch very, very little TV.
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So remember these frequency expressions and adverbs,
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and also remember: when we talk about habits or routines,
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we don’t use continuous or –ing forms.
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Alright, now let’s talk about the next use of the present
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simple tense.
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The second use of the present simple is to talk about
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permanent situations.
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What do I mean by that?
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Well, I have a brother and “My brother lives in Arizona.”
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When I say that he lives in Arizona, is that a vacation?
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No.
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Is that temporary – just for a week for so?
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No.
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It means that my brother lives there permanently.
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You can see this on the timeline.
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Maybe he started living there at some point in the past but
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it’s his home now.
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So here, we’re talking about something that is not going to change – so we say
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that it’s permanent.
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A common mistake is to say “My brother is living in Arizona.”
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If you use an –ing or continuous form, then that makes the situation
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temporary.
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For example, I could say, “My brother is living with me for a few
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months.”
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When you hear that, it sounds like it’s not permanent.
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It’s temporary.
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But when you want to talk about a permanent situation, remember to always use
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the present simple and NOT the continuous tense.
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Here’s another example: “Olga speaks Spanish.”
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Obviously, this is not going to change – Olga is not going to forget Spanish, so again,
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this is a permanent situation.
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And talking about myself, I can say, “I work as a teacher.”
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It’s wrong to say “I’m working as a teacher.”
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– if I say that, then it means my job is temporary,
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maybe just for a couple or months or so.
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But my job is a long term job, so I use the present simple tense.
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OK, let’s now move on to the third use of the
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present simple, and that is talking about facts.
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What are facts?
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Well, facts are truths – that is, they are statements about the world
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that are true.
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For example, “The capital of Canada is Ottawa.”
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Yes, it’s pronounced Ottawa – au-ta-wa.
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This is a fact about the world.
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Here are some more examples: “Water boils at a hundred degrees Celsius.”
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“Birds fly.”
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“Two plus two equals four.”
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These are all true statements – remember, when we spoke about permanent situations like
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“My brother lives in Arizona” I said those situations
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are not going to change.
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Well, these sentences on the screen are also permanent situations
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(in fact, these are really permanent situations because they have always been true and
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they’re never going to change).
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The only difference is that these are not personal
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situations – they talk about the world.
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With these as well, we don’t use continuous forms –
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only the present simple tense.
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Alright, let’s now turn to the last topic in our lesson –
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that is, talking about states using state verbs.
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In the beginning I said that this use of the present simple is very important.
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It’s very important because this is an area where learners of
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English make a lot of mistakes.
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But what are states?
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Well, take this example – “I want ice cream.”
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Unfortunately, there isn’t any ice cream in my studio, but the important
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point is that I cannot say “I am wanting ice cream.”
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But why is that?
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Now if you remember, I said “I drink tea every morning.”
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That’s a habit.
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But… if I had tea now, I could say “I’m drinking tea.” because it’s happening
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now.
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In the same way, “I want ice cream now.”
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– it’s not a habit, it’s not a permanent
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situation – it’s right now, but still I cannot say
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“I’m wanting ice cream.”
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“I’m drinking tea” is OK, but “I’m wanting ice cream”
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is not.
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Well, to understand why that is, you need to
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know the difference between activities and states.
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An activity is something that we do physically –
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it’s an action.
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The verb ‘drink’ is a real physical action –
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it starts when I start drinking, it happens continuously
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(I keep drinking and drinking the tea) and then
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it finishes.
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With this type of verb, you can use both simple and continuous forms.
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But the verb ‘want’ is not like that.
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You don’t start and finish wanting.
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And you cannot do it continuously because it’s
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not an action – so we say that it’s a state.
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We don’t normally use state verbs in –ing forms –
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we use them in the present simple tense.
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We just saw that the verb ‘want’ is a state verb –
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in the same way, other verbs that express wants and likes are also state verbs.
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You might say, for example, “Susan loves to sing.” or
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“I hate crowded places.”
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Since these verbs are state verbs, it’s very important to remember
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that we don’t use –ing forms with these.
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Verbs of thought and opinion are state verbs as well –
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you can think of these as ‘mental verbs’ – verbs that
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express the state of the mind.
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For example, “Do you remember me?”
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or “I think Ben is really smart.”
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Similarly, we have verbs of the senses – see, hear, smell, taste etc.
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For example, “Your perfume smells really nice.”
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or “This pizza tastes awful.”
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Then we have appearance verbs.
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As in these sentences: “That house seems to be empty.”
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and “Naomi looks really beautiful in that dress.”
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Verbs of possession or relation are also state verbs.
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And this is an area where mistakes are very common.
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For example, “I have two children.”
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The present simple tense should be used here because
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this shows the relationship between me and my children.
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So I cannot say “I’m having two children.”
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– it’s a common mistake.
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Another example is “The Mitchells (that means the Mitchell
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family) have a swimming pool at home.”
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Remember: don’t say “are having”.
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Alright, and finally, there are many other state verbs –
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you see some of the common ones on the screen now.
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It’s a good idea for you to memorize as many state verbs
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as you can, so that you don’t make mistakes with them.
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Now, a quick note: sometimes, you will see state verbs
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used in –ing forms.
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For example, McDonalds uses “I’m lovin’ it” as their slogan.
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This usage is informal, and in most situations, when you see a state
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verb in –ing form, it is informal use.
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In a different lesson, I will teach you where you can use continuous
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forms of state verbs correctly, but for now, as
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a general rule, just remember – always use state verbs in
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the present simple tense.
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OK, let’s now do a quick recap of what we learned in
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this lesson.
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In this lesson, we learned four uses of the present simple:
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the first is to talk about habits and routines –
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we looked at some common frequency expressions (like every morning, on Fridays etc.) and
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adverbs (like always, sometimes, never and so on).
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Then, we talked about permanent situations –
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that is, situations that don’t change.
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Then we turned to talking about facts – that is,
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statements about the world that are true.
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And finally, we discussed states with state verbs.
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Remember that state verbs are verbs which are not actions.
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They don’t happen continuously and they don’t finish.
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With these, we normally don’t use –ing forms.
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Alright, if you’re ready, it’s now time for a test
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to see if you can use the present simple tense correctly.
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On the screen, there are ten sentences.
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Some of them are correct and some are wrong.
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For each sentence, I want you say if it is correct or not.
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If a sentence is wrong, change it to the correct form.
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The four uses of the present simple are listed on the screen,
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so you can look at them and decide your answers.
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Pause the video now if you want, think about your answers,
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then play the video again and check.
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Alright let’s look the answers.
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Number one is wrong – it should be “I have two brothers” because
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this is a state – the verb ‘have’ shows relation here.
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That’s why we use the present simple.
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Number two is correct.
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It’s a permanent situation.
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So no –ing form.
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Number three is wrong – it should be “I always get up at 7.”
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Because this sentence talks about a routine – it’s my habit
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to get up at 7.
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Number four is also wrong.
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But here, using the present simple tense is the mistake.
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It should be “We’re reading.”
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You should not use the present simple here because this is not
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a habit, it’s not permanent situation, it’s not
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a fact about the world, and it’s not a state – it’s
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an action – reading – and it’s happening now.
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That’s why we use the continuous tense.
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Number five is correct . That’s because this is a
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temporary situation, not a permanent situation.
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See the difference between this sentence and number
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two – “Tanya works as a nurse.”
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Sentence number two expresses a situation which is not going to
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change – it’s permanent.
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But in number five, we’re saying that Jason is working on an important report today,
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so that means it is temporary – it’s just today.
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For that reason, we use the continuous form.
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Number six is wrong – “I don’t understand” is the
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correct form.
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Because ‘understand’ is a state verb.
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It’s a verb that express a mental state.
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Number seven is wrong as well – it should be
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“Do you think it’s raining outside?”
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Because this question is about something happening now, at this moment.
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So the present simple tense should not be used here.
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Number eight is correct.
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It talks about habit or routine.
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Number nine is wrong – “My grandparents live in India” is the
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right answer.
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Because this is a permanent situation.
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And finally, number ten is also wrong – it should be
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“The word huge means very big.”
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Because this is a fact.
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So you cannot use the continuous form here –
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you need to use the present simple.
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OK, how many of these did you get right?
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Let me know in the comments section below.
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16:06
Subscribe to this channel by clicking the subscribe button.
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I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I will see you in next lesson.
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