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  • Hello.

  • My name is Emma and in today's video we are going to talk about grammar, and specifically

  • we are going to talk about the present perfect progressive, and this video is a bit special

  • because in this video I am going to challenge you to use the present perfect progressive

  • in a sentence or in a conversation this week.

  • Okay? So, maybe you've heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge, well, this isn't that.

  • This is the: "Present Perfect Progressive Challenge".

  • Okay?

  • And I hope you do this.

  • So, here's the challenge:

  • Use present perfect progressive tense in one conversation this week.

  • So, in order to do this, first I'm going to teach you: What is the present perfect progressive?

  • We can also call it the present perfect continuous, you might know it by that name.

  • So I'm going to talk about what it is, why we use it.

  • I'm going to teach you about the form of it, so: How does it look?

  • And then we're going to practice it and we're going to talk about how we can actually use

  • this in a conversation.

  • Because I know what happens with many students, they go to class or, you know, they're studying

  • online and they find these great grammar worksheets or resources, and they do them at home and

  • it's great on paper, but then when they're actually in a conversation they get scared

  • about making a mistake or they can't remember the grammar, and so they don't use it.

  • So this video is more practical because I want you to use this grammar.

  • Okay, so let's look at some examples of the present perfect continuous or present perfect progressive.

  • That's going to get tiring to say.

  • It's such a long grammatical term, so if I make a mistake, you know, when I'm saying

  • the word, don't mind that.

  • Okay, so I have some examples here.

  • My first one: "I have"-so this is part of the form-"been working at my company for 5 years".

  • So, just take a moment to think about that.

  • "I have been working at my company for 5 years."

  • Now, let's look at another example.

  • We're going to compare some examples, and then think about what they all mean.

  • "He has been dating my friend for 2 months.

  • He has been dating my friend for 2 months."

  • Let's look at a third example: "We have been studying English forever."

  • [Laughs] Sometimes it might feel that way, but you know, bear with me.

  • "We have been studying English forever."

  • Okay, so what do these sentences have in common?

  • Well, first of all you probably realize these are all present perfect progressive sentences,

  • and they have a lot of things in common.

  • The main thing that we're using the present perfect progressive for is we're talking about

  • how long, so how long something is happening.

  • Okay? So we're talking about the duration of time, how long something happens for.

  • So you'll notice: "I have been working at my company for 5 years."

  • Five years is an amount of time.

  • Okay?

  • "He has been dating my friend for 2 months."

  • Two months is a period of time.

  • "We have been studying English forever."

  • Forever is a very long period of time.

  • Okay? So we're talking about periods of time when we're talking about the present perfect progressive,

  • and we're really answering the question: "How long?" or "How much time?"

  • Okay?

  • So now let's talk a little bit more about the meaning and the form.

  • Okay, so we've looked at some examples of the present perfect progressive, and let's

  • think a little bit more about the meaning.

  • I've drawn here a timeline.

  • Okay?

  • So this is now, today, right now; this is the future; and this is the past.

  • Okay?

  • So when we're talking about the...

  • Well, actually any grammar, what can be really helpful is looking at timelines, they can

  • really help you understand, you know, what these different tenses mean.

  • So let's look at our timeline and what the present perfect progressive tense would look

  • like on the timeline.

  • So, I have here my first example: "I have been working at my company for 5 years."

  • This means that five years ago, so let's go to the past-one, two, three, four, five-

  • I started working, so this is the beginning, and this action continued and continued and

  • continued to right now, so I'm still doing it.

  • So, when we're talking about this tense we're talking about something that began in the

  • past, and kept happening, you know, I kept working, working, working, and it has continued

  • to now, so it hasn't stopped.

  • It's an action that started before, kept happening, and now we're in the present and I'm still

  • doing it, so there's been no end.

  • So: "I have been working at my company for 5 years."

  • You can imagine, you know, maybe you know somebody who has a boyfriend or a girlfriend,

  • think about dating.

  • You know, there's two famous actors, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, they're older actors.

  • I think they've been dating for 30 years.

  • I could be wrong, but you could use the present perfect progressive to describe their relationship.

  • How long have Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell been dating for?

  • Okay? And I could be very wrong with this.

  • My trivia might be a bit off, but Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have been dating for over

  • 30 years, so that means that if this is 30 years ago, they started dating here and they

  • kept dating, and they're still dating today.

  • Okay?

  • So this is how we use the present perfect progressive.

  • We're really focused on the time period, and we're talking about something that started

  • in the past and continued to now.

  • So, we've talked about the meaning, and we'll do some practice in a moment, but before we

  • begin practicing, I want you to think about the form, or: How does the present perfect

  • progressive look?

  • So, I have here our subjects.

  • We can have "I" if I'm talking about myself, I can talk about "You", I can talk about "We",

  • or I can talk about "They", maybe I'm talking about friends, "They".

  • And when I'm using: "You", "We", "They", "I", or any of these types of subjects, the next

  • thing that comes for this tense is the word "have".

  • "I have", "You have", "We have", "They have".

  • And then we have the word "been".

  • Okay? So: "You have been", "We have been", "They have been", "I have been",

  • and then here we

  • have our action word or our verb, and you'll notice it ends in "ing".

  • So we can put any verb here.

  • "You have been studying English for a long time.",

  • "We have been watching YouTube for 10 hours."

  • I don't know, I hope not.

  • That's a long time to watch YouTube, but: "They have been working hard for days."

  • Okay?

  • So this is, you know...

  • Or, yeah, if we're thinking about dating:

  • "Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, they have been dating for 30 years."

  • Okay?

  • So I want you to start thinking about ways you can use this, maybe in your own life.

  • Now, when we're talking about: "He", "She", or "It", this is when it gets a little bit

  • more difficult.

  • We're not going to use "have" anymore, we're going to use "has".

  • "He has", "She has", "It has".

  • "She has been dating her boyfriend for 5 years.",

  • "He has been working at his company for 20 years.",

  • "It has been raining for weeks."

  • Okay? And, again, the focus is on the amount of time, that's why we're using this, we want

  • to know: How long?

  • Okay?

  • So now we're going to learn how to use this tense, and again, you know, you're going to

  • have to practice this.

  • It's good to even take out a piece of paper right now, and what you can do is you can

  • try to add different verbs here.

  • Okay? Just to practice, get used to using this, because we're going to use it in conversation

  • in a moment.

  • But before that, I'm going to teach you how to use this in the question form.

  • Okay?

  • Okay, so now we've looked at a little bit about the form when we're saying the present

  • perfect progressive in a sentence.

  • What about if we want to ask somebody a question in the present perfect progressive, how would

  • we do that?

  • Well, usually the question starts off with the words: "How long", because what we're

  • interested in is the period of time.

  • Okay?

  • So: "How long" and then we will have the word either "have" or "has", depending on what

  • our subject is.

  • So, for example, if my subject...

  • If I'm talking about myself, I use: "I", "you", "they", "we", then we would use "have"; or

  • if I'm talking about "he", "she", or "it", I would use "has".

  • So: "How long have I", "How long has he", "How long as she", "How long has it", okay?

  • And then after that we have the word "been", just like before: "been", our verb and "ing".

  • Okay?

  • So let's take a moment to make up some sentences together.

  • "How long have you been watching this video?",

  • "How long have you been studying English?",

  • "How long have you been living in your apartment or your house?"

  • Okay?

  • So just some examples.

  • And then if we wanted to use "he", "she", or "it":

  • "How long has it been snowing?",

  • "How long has it been raining?", "How long has he been reading his book?"

  • Okay? So you can see how we use this question in conversation.

  • So let's do some practice together, and then I'll talk a little bit more about our challenge.

  • So I have, here, part of our question.

  • It starts off with:

  • "How _______ _______ you been studying English?"

  • There's a missing word and a missing word: "...you been studying English"?

  • So how can we make this into a proper question?

  • Well, first we need the word "long": "How long".

  • And should this be "have" or "has"?

  • Well, if we look we see the word "you", "you", okay, so we know it has to be "have":

  • "How long have you been studying English?"

  • And what would our answer be?

  • So I want you to think about yourself.

  • How long have you been studying English?"

  • "I have _______ study___ for _______."

  • So what do we need here?

  • "I have

  • been", "I have been study",

  • "studying", "ing" is very important.

  • "I have been studying English for", and you can fill in the blank.

  • How long have you been studying English?

  • Maybe two months, maybe 10 years, maybe 20 years.

  • Okay?

  • I'll tell you about myself.

  • Well, I'm not going to put a number because I don't know...

  • I don't want you to know my age, but I'll say this: I have been studying English for

  • my whole life, and I continue to study English.

  • I learn new words all the time in English.

  • I have been studying for many, many years.

  • How... Okay, so let's do another one: "How long have you been working at _______?"

  • Your company?

  • Okay? Are you a student?

  • Do you have a job?

  • Do you work somewhere?

  • If you work somewhere or, you know, maybe you know somebody who has a job, you can ask them:

  • "How long have you been working at your company", "at your firm",

  • at, you know, the hotel, wherever your friend or where you yourself might work.

  • And the answer would be: "I _______ been working at _______ for."

  • What could we put here?

  • "I have been working at"

  • and you can say the name of your company: "for five years",

  • "for 10 years", "for two months", and maybe you're not working.

  • You can say: "I have been studying at school" or "at university" or "at college",

  • "I have been studying at my high school for four years."

  • Okay?

  • So you can change "working" to "studying" if you want as well.

  • Okay, so back to the challenge now.

  • We've done some practice with the present perfect progressive, so how are you going

  • to use this in a conversation this week?

  • So maybe you might want to follow this and ask somebody about their job.

  • How long have you been working at such-and-such place?

  • Okay?

  • Maybe you want to ask somebody about their relationship:

  • "How long have you been dating, you know, your girlfriend or your boyfriend?"

  • Maybe you want to ask someone about their hobbies or something they're interested in.

  • You know, some people watch Netflix or television shows and they spend a lot of time watching,

  • so you might want to ask them, you know, if you have a friend who loves Game of Thrones,

  • for example, you might ask them: "How long have you been watching Game of Thrones today?"

  • And maybe they'll say: "11 hours."

  • Okay?

  • "I have been watching Game of Thrones for, you know, 11 hours today."

  • Or, you know, you can ask them about a book.

  • Maybe they're reading a very thick book.

  • -"How long have you been reading that book for?"

  • -"I have been reading that book for two years now.

  • It's a very long book."

  • Okay?

  • So, think about relationships, dating, think about work, think about studying.

  • You know, maybe they're studying another language.

  • Think about their hobbies, their activities.

  • And remember: What you really want to find out is the length of time or the time period

  • they've been doing something for.

  • Okay?

  • So, I hope you do this present perfect progressive challenge.

  • I think it's really good if you take the grammar you're learning here and you use it in a conversation,

  • that's what we want.

  • All right?

  • So, to practice this more you can come visit our website at www.engvid.com,

  • and there you can take our quiz to make sure that, you know,

  • you understand the form and the meaning of this.

  • You know, this might be an idea to do before you use this in conversation.

  • And if you don't have anyone to practice with, try it with a mirror. Okay?

  • Like, you know, if you have friends who speak English or something like that, that's great,

  • but if not that's okay.

  • You can even write present progressive or present perfect progressive in our comments.

  • Okay?

  • Try it there.

  • You know, I'm sure other students will also be using our comment board to write these

  • types of sentences, so that's a great way to get some practice as well.

  • I also invite you to come check out...

  • Or to subscribe to my channel.

  • I have a lot of other resources there on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and all sorts of

  • other topics related to English, so I highly recommend it.

  • Thank you for watching, and until next time, take care.

Hello.

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