Using JUST for Actions Recently Finished - Basic English Grammar

hi everybody my name is Alisha in this

lesson I'm going to talk about how to use the word just for actions that

finished very very recently I'm going to talk about a couple of different

patterns where we see the word just used to talk about recently finished actions

and I'm also going to talk about maybe one question that you might have about

tenses with the word just so for this lesson I'm going to use a timeline from

past to future with a point in the present also just a reminder to review

we use the word just as an emphasis word for this lesson an emphasis word for an

activity that's close to the present something that happened close to the

present time in the past in this case but we can also use it for future

actions you can check a different video to see the word just used for future

actions so let's take a look at today's points then okay the first pattern that

I want to talk about is marked in green here it's the subject of the sentence

plus the word just plus a past tense verb a simple past tense verb in this

case and extra information according to the verb that you use so this is a very

simple past tense statement but we want to emphasize that it was something that

took place something that happened just before or very very recently so very in

the very recent past in other words let's take a look at a couple of

examples then first example I just sent you an email so here my subject I

followed by just and then my simple past tense sent which is the past tense of

the verb send you and email so this is something that happened very very

recently I just sent you an email we can drop the word just here I sent you an

email however using the word just shows how recently the action happened so this

is an emphasis word we can see it pretty clearly here I think

let's look at another example we just saw that movie so saw is the past tense

form of C so we just saw that movie very very recently we saw that movie that's

what we want to communicate with this sentence another example he just got

back from from France or he just came back from France is good too so I've

used got here to get back from a place as kind of a casual verb choice we can't

say he just came back from France as well so each of these we see a simple

past tense verb is used these are completed actions then and they happen

very recently so something very very close to the present but it happened in

the past so to kind of give a visual we can imagine that these actions happen

very recently in the past in the second pattern that I want to look at however

I'm going to change the sentence a little bit let's take a look so again we

have the subject here though I have the verb to be in this case we're going to

use the past tense of the verb then we have just followed by the progressive or

the continuous tense of the verb this is the ing form of the verb and again any

extra information according to the verb that you're using so let's take a look

at when we might use this kind of pattern here

first one I was past the tense according to my subject was I was just and then

studying is my verb here I was just studying so this is an action that was

happening you'll notice the progressive tense in the very recent past something

I was doing I was in the process of doing in the very recent past let's take

a look at another example here he was just washing the dishes

he was just washing the dishes shows this is an action that was happening but

in the past very recently just shows us that this action was in progress so this

is something he in this case this person was doing in the past it was a

continuing action in the past very recently let's look at one more example

then someone was just smoking in here

so if for example you enter a room and it's very smoky you were not smoking

maybe you want to make a guess someone was just so very recently smoking in

here in the process of smoking in this case so each of these shows that

something was happening in the past very recently and perhaps it was interrupted

or it ended at the present point in time so for example this sentence I was just

studying maybe for example yours you're in the process of studying but your

phone rings you pick up the phone and you answer it with oh hello I was just

studying so something I was very recently continuing to do in this case -

he was just washing the dishes shows us for example that someone was recently

very recently washing the dishes that was the ongoing action but perhaps that

action was interrupted he was just washing the dishes but now he's outside

taking out the garbage for example so these patterns we can use to show an

action that was continuing in the past and recently finished or perhaps that

was just interrupted so maybe that action is going to continue in the

future like for example I was just studying I picked up the phone to talk

to my friend I'm going to continue studying in the future but we can use

was here or were but a past tense form of the verb be plus the continuous tense

to show an action continuing that was continuing in the very recent past so

this can be quite useful for interrupted activities as I said okay but there are

a couple of things I want to mention here because while these are useful and

perhaps you can check the other video about how to use just for future actions

there's one kind of simple similar pattern I suppose that might cause some

confusion or that might not be so clear so I have a couple of example sentences

here in this lesson I've talked about using the past tense form of the verb to

be but I'm using the the progressive form

here or in the first pattern I introduced I'm not using the be verb in

this case but I'm using a simple past tense verb if however you see a sentence

like one of these like for example I was just about to send you an email or he

was just about to make dinner it might cause some confusion because here we

have past tense I was or he was in this case but this point just about to

suggest a future action so it seems like it doesn't match really there's a past

tense point and maybe a future tense point together here this is a pattern

that's used for actions we were planning to do we had a plan something we wanted

to do in the near future however the action was interrupted so for example

this is a sentence you can use at work or maybe at school maybe you have a plan

to email your professor or to email a colleague however before you have time

or before you have a chance to email your colleague your colleague comes to

you or your colleague calls you for example so you can say I was just about

to so something you plan to do in the very recent future however you did not

do so the plan was interrupted or you did not have a chance or there's some

reason that you did not take the action you're describing here so in this

example he was just about to make dinner but perhaps an action interrupted it so

he was just about to make dinner when his friend invited him out for pizza for

example so perhaps these are used for interruptions we plan to do something

but that plan is interrupted for some reason so we mix this past tense be verb

+ this about - which I talked about more in the future tense example or the

future tense sample patterns in the other video about this topic so please

check that out if you have some questions about how to use just for

future actions so I hope that this video was useful for you if you have any

question or comments or if you would like to try

to make a sentence please feel free in the comments section of the video if you

liked the video please make sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the

channel also you can check us out at English class 101.com for some other

resources too thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you

again soon