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  • Hi.

  • I'm Rebecca from engVid, and this lesson is going to save you years of English mistakes.

  • Why?

  • Because it's a diagnostic lesson.

  • In just a few minutes you'll find out what you know and don't know regarding

  • the past tenses in English.

  • And why is that important?

  • For two reasons.

  • First, you can focus on what you don't know and improve those areas and improve quickly,

  • and second because the past tenses are among the most important tenses that we use in English.

  • Okay?

  • And at the end of the lesson after you've done the exercise and you find out what you

  • might get wrong or right, I'll show you exactly how to improve, what you can do.

  • Some simple steps.

  • Okay?

  • Let's get started.

  • So, number one: "It rains all day yesterday."

  • Okay?

  • So these are all sentences in the past tense.

  • Okay?

  • There are four tenses we're covering: Past simple, past continuous, present perfect,

  • and past perfect.

  • Okay?

  • So, all of these sentences have some mistakes.

  • You try to find out: What's the mistake?

  • If you know, then you know that part.

  • If you don't, we'll see what to do.

  • So: "It rains all day yesterday."

  • What's wrong with that sentence?

  • Okay.

  • So, we're talking about yesterday so we know it's in the past, so what's wrong is here,

  • this verb is right now in the present simple.

  • It should be...

  • It should be in the past.

  • So then this sentence should be in the past simple.

  • So if you didn't know that, then...

  • Then you need to review the past simple.

  • Okay?

  • Number two: "Have you seen Maria last week?

  • Have you seen Maria last week?"

  • What's wrong with that sentence?

  • Or that question, rather.

  • Can you find the mistake?

  • Okay, so the mistake is this:

  • When we say: "Have you seen", that's which tense?

  • Present perfect.

  • But then we go on to say: "Have you seen Maria last week?"

  • That's a problem, because when we use the present perfect tense, we cannot use a finished

  • time with it.

  • If you use a finished time, like last week, then you have to change this question and

  • make it into past simple.

  • For example: "Did you see Maria last week?"

  • That's one way to fix that question.

  • And the other way, if we wanted to keep it present perfect-right?-we would say:

  • "Have you seen Maria this week?" for example.

  • Okay?

  • That...

  • Of course, that has a different meaning, but if you're going to use this tense then if

  • you have a timeframe you can only talk about time which is either still going on, like

  • this week, today, this month, this year, and so on.

  • Okay?

  • So if you made a mistake here, remember to review present perfect.

  • Okay?

  • Just make a note of that.

  • Next: "Gary studied when I arrived.

  • Gary studied when I arrived."

  • What's wrong there?

  • There is a little mistake there, and it's here.

  • Okay?

  • This should be: "Gary was studying"-right?-"when I arrived".

  • Now, "was studying" is past continuous.

  • So, why do we need past continuous there?

  • Because the action of studying takes some time.

  • Right?

  • It doesn't happen in one second.

  • So he was studying, and studying, and studying, and then in the middle of this studying I arrived.

  • "Arrived" doesn't take time, so "arrived" can be in the past simple tense.

  • That's fine.

  • I arrived, it's finished, it's over.

  • But Gary was studying, and studying, and studying, and studying, and I came in the middle of that.

  • Okay?

  • So these are the kinds of things you have to know about these tenses in order to use

  • them correctly.

  • So, if you made a mistake here, remember to review past continuous.

  • Remember at the end of the lesson I'll tell you exactly how you can review these.

  • Okay?

  • Next, number four: "When have you sent the email?"

  • Okay?

  • "When have you sent the email?"

  • Okay.

  • So, the problem here, again, is that the tense that's used is present perfect.

  • But with present perfect we cannot use the word "when".

  • If you use the question word "when", then you need to change this entire question to

  • past simple.

  • "When did you send the email?"

  • Okay?

  • "When did you send the email?"

  • Because when I ask you that question you're going to tell me sometime in the past that's

  • finished and over.

  • So that's past simple, and not present perfect.

  • So if you made a mistake here, you should really review past simple, but more importantly

  • also, again, present perfect.

  • Okay?

  • A little bit of both.

  • If you just said here: "Have you sent the email?" then it's fine and it's present perfect.

  • Okay?

  • But if you need to use the question word "when", remember to change it to past simple.

  • Good.

  • Number five: "Did you ever see this movie?

  • Did you ever see this movie?"

  • Now, this one is almost correct because most of the time we use another tense, but you

  • could use this.

  • Okay?

  • "Did you ever see this movie?"

  • It's possible that you will hear people saying that, but as a grammar teacher and as an English

  • teacher I'm telling you that actually what you should say here is:

  • "Have you ever seen this movie?"

  • Okay?

  • Because "ever" is one of those words that we in fact do use a lot with the present perfect

  • tense.

  • So when you see the word "ever": "Have you ever seen this movie?

  • Have you ever read this book?

  • Have you ever visited Japan?"

  • Right?

  • Questions like that, really, you should be using present perfect and not past simple.

  • So this one is also present perfect.

  • Remember to review that if you got that wrong.

  • Number six: "When the guests arrived, I already cooked dinner.

  • When the guests arrived, I already cooked dinner."

  • So what's wrong there?

  • The clue is actually from this word, "already".

  • Okay?

  • So here we are talking about what?

  • We're talking about two actions that happened in the past.

  • But one happened before the other.

  • What happened first?

  • "I already cooked dinner", right?

  • I cooked dinner first, and then the guests arrived.

  • So: "When the guests arrived I...

  • I had already cooked dinner."

  • So that is an example of when we can use the past perfect.

  • Past perfect is used when we're talking about two actions and you want to show that one

  • of them happened first in the past, although both of them happened in the past.

  • The past perfect part of the sentence shows you what happened first in the past.

  • So, if you didn't know that then please review the past perfect.

  • Okay?

  • You're doing fine.

  • Don't worry.

  • You're doing great.

  • Number seven: "I wasn't understanding what you said.

  • I wasn't understanding what you said."

  • Well, that's not right.

  • It should be:

  • "I didn't understand what you said."

  • Why?

  • Because there are certain verbs which we cannot use in the continuous form.

  • They are called stative verbs.

  • So you have to know what they are, and when you learn the continuous tense you usually

  • come across this part of the lesson, stative verbs, and you need to know there are certain

  • verbs you cannot use with...

  • In this continuous form.

  • So you can never say: "I'm not understanding"

  • or "I'm understanding", or "I was understanding".

  • No.

  • You can only use it in the simple form.

  • So if you got that wrong, then please check your past continuous tense.

  • Okay?

  • You need to know when you learn that tense that there's certain verbs, stative verbs

  • which we cannot use in that kind of continuous form.

  • Okay?

  • And the last one: "When I reached the airport, the flight already left."

  • Okay, we did one similar to this back here.

  • "When I reached the airport, the flight already left."

  • So, again, what's going on here?

  • Two actions in the past, and you want to show that one of those actions happened first.

  • The action that happened first we have to express using the past perfect tense, which

  • means we need to say: "The flight had already left."

  • When I reached the airport, before that the flight had already left.

  • So if you weren't sure about that or you got it wrong, then please review the past perfect tense.

  • Okay?

  • Now, I know there's quite a lot to do, but you can master it.

  • But if you don't understand why it was wrong, that's what I want you to be able to do because

  • you're not going to have a teacher with you all the time.

  • You are your own teacher, so as you get better at understanding what the reasons were why

  • these were wrong, you will be able to improve your English very, very quickly.

  • So, what should you do now?

  • Well, you should do this: Go to our website at www.engvid.com.

  • There, you can do a quiz on this subject.

  • Right?

  • On these tenses that we did.

  • That's the first thing.

  • Second, you can watch hundreds of other videos about these tenses and you may...

  • You will find lessons on past simple, past continuous, present perfect, past perfect.

  • You can watch those.

  • Okay?

  • Also, I've written a resource which you can look at and you can download it for free,

  • and it's called: "English Verb Tenses", you can also refer to that.

  • And besides that, you can subscribe to my channel because I have a lot of lessons

  • that are going to save you lots and lots of time.

  • Okay? Your time is precious.

  • Learn the important mistakes that students make, which I know because

  • I've been teaching English for more than 25 years, and I know I can help you.

  • Okay?

  • Thanks very much for watching and good luck with your English.

  • Bye for now.

Hi.

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