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Tenses 4952 Views
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Transcript
- 00:00
Tenses a la Shmoop.
- 00:02
So youre sitting in Spanish class and the teacher calls on you to translate the
- 00:06
phrase if I had known you were going to attend I would have saved you
- 00:10
a seat and you both know that you would rather get into spandex and fight
- 00:15
lucha libre in front of the whole class than figure out how to say that.
Full Transcript
- 00:19
had knownwere going to...
- 00:21
would have saved You dont have to think twice about saying a big fat phrase
- 00:25
in English a language with 12-16 tenses depending on who you ask but you probably
- 00:30
dont even know what to call the tenses you use in English every day.
- 00:34
So uh step away from the spandex for a secondand lets talk tenses.
- 00:38
Present perfect simple past perfect progressive conditional perfect the way we talk about tenses in
- 00:42
English just sounds like word diarrhea.
- 00:44
But if we break it down its all just a matter of time when
- 00:49
somethings happening and for how long.
- 00:51
First youve got your basic tenses past present future and conditional.
- 00:55
You know this stuff.
- 00:57
It either already happened or its happening or it will happen and if its conditional
- 01:01
it depends on something else happening.
- 01:04
The conditional is usually the then part of an if-then statement and it uses would
- 01:08
could or should.
- 01:10
Like when your mom says if you had finished your Spanish homework I would have
- 01:14
taken you to see the One Direction movie.
- 01:17
Anyway if we stopped there the English language would have just four tenses.
- 01:21
Four boring tenses.
- 01:23
Things would have to happen one after the other.
- 01:26
You could never be doing one thing while your friend did something else.
- 01:30
Thats why weve got ways to describe those tenses simple progressive and perfect.
- 01:34
All these words do is make the time of the tense even more specific.
- 01:38
Simple means that the emphasis is on the verb being executed.
- 01:41
That is you do something and then its finished.
- 01:45
Progressive --sometimes called continuous-- means that the emphasis is on duration being in the process
- 01:49
of doing something.
- 01:51
A progressive verb is making progress you could say.
- 01:54
Perfect means that the action has already happened but is significant in the present tense.
- 01:58
It uses the helper verb to have.
- 02:01
This one will make more sense in a second.
- 02:04
And now its just a mix-and-match game four basic tenses three descriptors.
- 02:08
To make sure weve got this down lets try it out bring out the presents
- 02:12
not that kind of present.
- 02:14
Simple present I speak. Simple.
- 02:17
The focus is on the action.
- 02:19
You speak and then youre done speaking.
- 02:22
Present Progressive I am speaking.
- 02:24
Its progressive because it emphasizes the process of the action.
- 02:28
Youre in the middle of speaking.
- 02:30
Present perfect simple I have spoken.
- 02:33
This ones perfect because it uses have as a helper.
- 02:36
Plus its already happened hes done speaking but its still important for the present.
- 02:40
Really anybody who says I have spoken thinks theyre important for the present and its
- 02:44
simple because its about the execution of the verb not the process.
- 02:48
Present perfect progressive I have been speaking.
- 02:51
Again its perfect because of the have and progressive because the focus is on the
- 02:55
process of speaking.
- 02:57
So weve got these seven basic terms past present future conditional simple progressive perfect
- 03:01
and with all the tenses all youve gotta do is take em apart term-by-term and
- 03:06
see what theyre made of.
- 03:08
Its better than losing to a guy in hot pink spandex ... NOTE end of file
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