English Grammar - SINCE & FOR

Hi, my name is Rebecca and in today's lesson we're going to talk about two commonly confused

words that are used with the present perfect tense.

Now the present perfect tense is usually when we say something like "I have been", "I have

seen", "You have gone", "They have been", right?

That is the present perfect tense.

The present perfect tense is used to talk about something that happened in the past

and it's still true or still relevant now or today.

So it kind of includes the past as well as the present, alright?

But let's look at some examples and see how to use the words "since" and "for" correctly

with this tense, okay?

So "since" you should be using with the point in time, the beginning of the point when something

started to be true and "for" you should use to describe the length of time that something

was true.

Now that seems very technical so let's apply it so you understand more easily, okay?

We could say, let's say, let's suppose that the year is 2010 which it is actually right

now, 2010.

So I could say "I have worked here since 1990", right?

Or if it's 2010, "I have worked here for 20 years", right?

You see "since" plus the point in time, the beginning when that became true and "for"

plus the actual length of time or period of time that that statement is true.

So "I have worked here since 1990", "I have worked here for 20 years".

For example, "We have lived in Mexico since 2005" or "We have lived in Mexico for 5 years",

okay?

So I hope this helps you to understand the difference between the two.

The mistake that many students make is they sometimes say "I have lived here since 20

years".

So you can't do "since" and the "20 years", you have to do "since" plus the actual time

when something began to happen.

So I'm going to come back in a minute and give you another full example of exactly how

to use "since" and "for", okay?

Back in a minute.

Okay, so now let's look at our example.

Let's take our friend John here and I've written some information about John.

When he started to do certain things in his life, alright?

So this is when he became a student, this is when he came to Canada, and this is when

he got married.

So now let's try to make a number of different statements about John, alright?

So we could say "John has been a student since 2000".

Let's say that the year is 2010 now.

We could also say "John has been a student for 10 years", correct?

Okay?

Did you get that?

Let's take another example.

John has been, or sorry, let's say John has lived in Canada since 2005, right?

We're saying "since" plus the point in time when that became true.

John has lived in Canada since 2005, or you could say "John has lived in Canada for five

years."

Okay?

When he got married, John has been married, right?

John has been married since 2008, that means he got married in 2008 and he has been married

ever since that time, till now, and including now, or we could also say "John has been married

for two years."

Okay?

You see how to do that?

You should be able to do both, alright?

Because sometimes we use "since" and sometimes we use "for", they're both very common words

in English, so get comfortable with both of them, try out a lot of practice sentences

of your own, take some facts from your life, and try to write out some examples using "since"

and "for" for the same fact, and this way you should be able to understand these words

really well.

And if you'd like some more practice, please feel free to go to our website, www.engvid.com,

they have a quiz that you can do on this, as well as on many other subjects in English.

Alright?

So, thanks for watching, good luck with your English, bye for now.