Basic English Grammar Course | Present Perfect Tense | Learn and Practice

Hi, everyone.

I'm Esther.

In this video, I'm going to introduce the present perfect tense.

This tense can be used to talk about an action that happened in the past,

but when it happened is not very important or it’s unknown.

It can also be used to talk about an action that started in the past and continues in

the present.

We really want to emphasize how long that action has been happening.

And finally, we use this tense to talk about a recent action.

There's a lot to learn and a lot of important information, so keep watching.

Let's talk about one usage of the present perfect tense.

This tense can be used to talk about an action that happened in the past.

But when it happened is not important or not known.

However, this action is important to the conversation right now.

Let's take a look at some examples.

The first one says, ‘I have been to Canada.’

What we do here is we start with the subject, ‘I’.

For ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’, and ‘they’, we follow with ‘have’.

After that we use the past participle of the verb.

In this case, the verb is ‘be’.

And so the past participle is ‘been’.

‘I have been to Canada.’

The next sentence says, ‘My cousins have seen the movie.’

My cousins is a ‘they’.

And so again, we follow with ‘have’.

And the past participle of see is ‘seen’.

‘They have seen the movie.’

Or ‘My cousins have seen the movie.’

The next example says, ‘Chad has gone home.’

Chad is a ‘he’.

For ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, we follow with ‘has’.

Then, the past participle ‘gone’ is for the verb ‘go’.

‘Chad has gone home.’

And finally, ‘My phone has been fixed.’

My phone is an ‘it’.

Therefore, I use ‘has’.

And then I need the past participle of ‘be’ – ‘been’.

‘My phone has been fixed.’

Let's move on to the next usage.

The present perfect tense is also used to describe an action that started in the past

and continues in the present.

‘for’ and since’ are common expressions used with the present perfect tense.

Let's take a look at these examples.

‘I have worked there since 2002.’

You'll notice we start with the subject.

If it's ‘I’, ‘you’ or ‘we’, we have ‘have’.

Then the past participle of the verb.

In this case - ‘worked’.

What you'll notice here is that we also have ‘since 2002’.

This shows when the action started, so with the expression ‘since’, you need to use

a specific point in time.

The next example does the same thing.

‘You have had a car since last year.’

Again, we use ‘since’, so we have a specific point in time - ‘last year’.

Take a look at the next example.

‘Anna has liked him for weeks.’

In this case the subject is ‘Anna’.

Which is a ‘she’, and so we use ‘has’.

Then the past participle ‘liked’.

However, at the end of the sentence, we see ‘for weeks’.

Not ‘since weeks’.

When we use ‘for’, we talk about the duration.

We explain how long this action has been true.

And finally, ‘We have eaten lunch here for 3 months.’

Again, the sentence ends with ‘for 3 months’.

So we show the duration.

Let's move on to the next usage.

In addition, the present perfect tense can be used to describe an action that recently

stopped.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

‘I have just been to the doctor,’

So just like for all the other usages, we start with the subject,

‘have’ or ‘has’, and the past participle.

But you'll notice here, I used the word ‘just’ between ‘have’ and the verb.

‘I have just been to the doctor.’

This shows that it happened very recently.

The next example says, ‘James has just seen his new baby.’

Again, just goes in between ‘have’ or ‘has’ and the verb.

Take a look at the next example.

It says, ‘She has already been to China.’

‘already’ is another word you can use to show that this action recently happened.

However, ‘already’ can also be moved to the end of the sentence.

So it's perfectly fine to say, ‘She has been to China already.’

And in the last example, ‘We have recently visited Tom.’

Again, you can put this word between ‘have’ or ‘has’ and the verb.

Or you can also put it at the end of the sentence.

‘We have visited Tom recently.’

Let's move on.

Let's take a look at the negative form of the present perfect tense.

Here are some examples.

The first one says, ‘I have not been to Europe.’

What you'll notice in the first sentence is that we simply put a 'not' between ‘have’

and ‘been’.

‘I have not been to Europe.’

You can also use a contraction and say ‘I haven't been to Europe.’

The next sentence says, ‘It has not rained for 3 months.’

Again, we put the ‘not’ between the ‘has’ and the verb.

‘It has not rained for 3 months.’

Here we have a time expression to show the duration.

The next example says, ‘Teddy hasn't driven for 2 years.’

We used the contraction here for ‘has’ and ‘not’ – ‘hasn't’.

And then we use the time expression ‘for 2 years’ at the end of the sentence.

And finally, the last sentence says, ‘My sons haven't played soccer since 2010.’

We see another contraction here for ‘have not’ – ‘haven't’.

‘My sons haven't played soccer since 2010.’

This time expression uses ‘since’.

And so we mention a specific point and time.

Let's move on.

Now let's take a look at the ‘have’ or ‘has’ question form of the present perfect

tense.

Take a look at the board.

The first sentence says, ‘Mike has eaten lunch.’

That is a statement.

Now to turn it into a question, it's quite easy.

All you have to do is put ‘has’ at the beginning.

Then you follow with the subject and then the past participle.

You'll notice that the placement of the past participle doesn't change.

We've simply changed the order of the first 2 words.

‘Has Mike eaten lunch?’

‘Has Mike eaten lunch?’

And you can answer by saying ‘Yes, he has.’ or ‘No, he hasn't.’

The next sentence says, ‘They have watched the video.’

This is a statement.

If we want to turn it into a question, again, we change the order of the first two words.

‘Have they…?’

And the past participle verb stays in the same place.

‘Have they watched the video?’

‘Have they watched the video?’

You can answer this question by saying, ‘Yes, they have.’

or ‘No, they haven't.’

Good job, guys.

Let's move on.

Now, I'll briefly introduce how to ask WH questions in the present perfect tense.

Take a look at the board.

I have ‘where’, ‘what’, ‘who’, and ‘how’.

These go at the beginning of the question.

Let's take a look at the first example.

‘Where has Tim been?’

You'll notice we followed the WH word with ‘has’ or ‘have’.

In this case, I used ‘has’ because the subject is ‘Tim’, and Tim is a ‘he’.

And then we followed that with the past participle of the verb.

‘Where has Tim been?’

And I can answer by saying, ‘Tim has been home.’

or ‘Tim has been on vacation.’

Something like that.

The next question says, what countries have you visited?

I can answer by saying, ‘I have visited China.’

or ‘I have visited Mexico.’

You can also use the contraction ‘I’ve’.

‘I've visited China.’

The next question says, ‘Who has she talked to?’

You can answer by saying, ‘She has talked to her mom.’ or ‘She has talked to her

teacher.’

The next question says, ‘How long have you been married?’

‘I've been married for 3 years.’

That's one answer that you can give.

Great job, everybody.

Let's move on.

For this checkup, we'll take a look at the present perfect tense.

Which describes an action that happened at

an unknown or indefinite time in the past.

Let's look at the first sentence.

‘She _blank_ read that book.’

The subject in this sentence is ‘she’.

For he/she/it, in this tense we say, ‘has’.

‘She has’.

Now, take a look at the verb.

It looks like ‘read’.

But remember we need to use the past participle of the verb.

So It's actually ‘read’.

‘read’ and ‘read’ are spelled the same.

‘She has read that book.’

The second sentence says, ‘They _blank_ visit China.’

‘visit’ is the verb that you want to use here.

For ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’ and ‘they’, we use ‘have’.

Not ‘has’.

‘They have’

Now, what's the past participle of visit?

The answer is ‘visited’.

‘They have visited China.’

Next, ‘We _blank_ see that concert.’

Again, for ‘I’, ‘you’, we’ and ‘they’ – we use ‘have’.

‘We have’.

Now, the past participle of ‘see’ is 'seen'.

‘We have seen that concert.’

Now, let's look for the mistake in the next sentence.

‘Rick have been to Cuba.’

Take a look at the subject, ‘Rick’.

Rick is a ‘he’.

So instead of ‘have’, we need to change this to ‘has’.

‘Rick has been to Cuba.’

‘Sally and I hasn't finished work.’

The subject in this sentence is ‘Sally’ and ‘I’.

The pronoun for that is ‘we’.

‘We hasn't finished work.’

That still sounds weird, right?

We have to change this to ‘have not’ or the contraction ‘haven't’.

And finally, ‘I did go to the doctor.’

Now this sentence makes sense, but it's not the present perfect tense.

We have to change it.

Remember, we use ‘have’ for the subject, ‘I’.

But we're not done.

What is the past participle of ‘go’?

It is ‘gone’.

‘I have gone to the doctor.’

Great job.

Let's move on to the next checkup.

In this checkup, we'll talk about the present perfect tense

and how it can be used to describe an action that started in the past and is still true

today.

The first sentence says, ‘I _blank_ known Carly since 1994.’

The subject is ‘I’.

And we already have the past participle of the verb, ‘know’.

Which is ‘known’.

What are we missing?

The correct answer is ‘have’.

For ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’ and ‘they’, we use ‘have’ after the subject.

The next sentence says,

‘He has been here _blank_ 2 p.m.’

Now the first part is all there.

‘He has been’.

However, remember that for the present perfect tense,

we use ‘for’ or ‘since’ to talk about how long that action has been true.

In this case, we use ‘since’.

Because 2 p.m. is a specific period in time.

Next it says, ‘She _blank_ liked Tom since June.’

The subject is ‘she’.

And we have the past participle of the verb ‘like’, which is 'liked'.

What are we missing?

Again, we need ‘have’ or ‘has’.

Because the subject is ‘she’...

Can you figure out which one you need?

The correct answer is ‘has’.

‘She has liked Tom since June.’

Now, I want you to find a mistake in the next sentence.

‘I have worked here six months ago.’

Can you find a mistake here?

‘I have worked’ - that's correct.

However, in the present perfect tense, we don't use ‘ago’.

This is talking about more the past.

We want to talk about ‘since’ or ‘for’ instead.

Now ‘six months’ is not a specific time.

So we don't use ‘since’.

Instead, we talk about the duration.

So we need ‘for’.

We'll say, ‘I have worked here for six months.’

Let's take a look at the next sentence.

‘Jen have a cold for two weeks.’

At first glance, this doesn't seem that wrong.

But remember, Jen is a ‘she’.

So we need ‘has’.

‘Jen has’.

But wait a minute, ‘Jen has have a cold’?

That's not right either.

We need the past participle of ‘have’.

What is the past participle?

The correct answer is ‘had’.

‘Jen has had a cold for two weeks.’

And finally, ‘We haven't went home since Friday.’

This one is a little tricky.

The subject is ‘we’.

‘We have... have not’.

That's correct.

The contraction is ‘haven't’.

‘We haven't’.

Now the problem is, we have this verb ‘went’.

That's in the past simple tense.

We need the past participle of ‘go’.

The correct answer is ‘gone’.

‘We haven't gone home since Friday.’

Good job, guys.

Let's move on to the next checkup.

In this checkup, we'll take a look at the present perfect tense.

And how it is used to describe an action that finished recently.

We'll be focusing on the words, ‘just’, ‘already’ and ‘recently’ to show this.

Let's take a look at the first sentence.

‘She has just _blank_ that book.’

And we're using the verb, ‘read’.

Remember, we take the subject, ‘she’.

And for ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘it’, we say ‘has’.

So that's correct.

Now we need the past participle of ‘read’.

And that is ‘read’.

‘She has just read that book.’

You'll notice I use the word, ‘just’ right before the past participle.

Next it says, ‘They have already’ and the verb is ‘wake up’.

If the subject is ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’, we use ‘has’.

But if the subject is ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’ or ‘they’, we use ‘have’.

So that's correct.

‘They have’.

Also we have the word ‘already’ here to show that it happened recently

or that it finished recently.

Now the verb is ‘wake up’.

We need the past participle of ‘wake up’,

and that is ‘woken up’.

So the answer is,

‘They have already woken up.’

The next sentence says,

‘We have recently _blank_ work.’

And the verb is ‘finish’.

‘We have’, that's correct.

And we have the word 'recently' to show when the action finished.

And now we need to find the past participle of the verb ‘finish’.

The correct answer is.

‘We have recently finished, -ed, work.’

Now try to find the mistake in the next sentence.

‘Morty has eaten just.’

This sounds a little strange, right?

That's because ‘just’ needs to come before the verb.

Therefore, the answer is ‘Morty has just eaten.’

The next sentence says, ‘Karen has recently be sick.’

Karen is a ‘she’.

So ‘has’ is correct.

And there we have ‘recently’.

Now we need the past participle of the verb.

‘be’ is our verb and the past participle of ‘be’ is ‘been’.

‘Karen has recently been sick.’

And finally, ‘I have gone already to the dentist.’

This is similar to another question we looked at just before.

‘I have gone already to the dentist.’

The placement of ‘already’ is a little awkward.

So we can say, ‘I have already gone.’

So we can put ‘already’ before the verb,

‘I have already gone to the dentist’

Or we can put this at the end,

‘I have gone to the dentist already.’

Both of those are correct.

Now, good job.

That is the end of the checkup.

Let's move on.

Excellent job, everyone.

You just learned about the present perfect tense.

There was a lot to learn, but you did a wonderful job.

Keep studying English.

I know that It's hard, but you will get better with time, effort and practice.

I'll see you in the next video.