Learn English Tenses: The Present Perfect

Hi, Bob the Canadian here. Welcome to this English lesson where I'm going to help you learn the present perfect tense. - [Narrator] Hey, have you started yet?

- Yes, I've started. - [Narrator] Sorry. - No problem.

The present perfect tense is used when you wanna talk about an action where the time isn't important or the time isn't specified or the action hasn't really finished happening. We use it in sentences like this. I have worked hard today.

I have learned a lot of new English vocabulary. So stick around. In this lesson, I'll show you how to form the present perfect tense.

I'll show you how to conjugate it and we'll talk about when to use the present perfect tense. We'll also look at how to form the negative and of course, how to form questions using this tense. (classical music) Let's start by talking about how to conjugate the present perfect tense.

You do this by taking your subjects, I, you, he, she, we and they, and you conjugate the verb to have as your helper verb so I have, you have, he, she has, we have and they have. Then you take your verb and you put it into the past participle. I'm going to use the verb to call because it's regular, but you will need to learn a lot of irregular verbs as well.

You would then this. I have called, you have called, he has called, she has called, we have called or they have called. That's how you conjugate the present perfect tense.

As you know, in English we're always in a hurry to say things as quickly as possible so we usually use contractions. So we don't often say I have called. Instead we would say things like this.

I've called, you've called, he's called, she's called, we've called and they've called. I don't know why, but we're always in a hurry and we like to mush our words together so that we can say them quickly. We often use contractions.

Let's talk about when you should use the present perfect tense. There are about five situations when you should use this verb tense. The first is when the time of the action is not over.

So if I say something like this, I have worked hard today, I'm still working hard now, I was working hard and I will most likely keep working hard, so the time of the action is not over. I have worked hard today. I think I've worked hard today.

Yeah, I've worked pretty hard today. The second situation where you would use the present perfect tense is when you're using the words for and since to talk about something that started in the past. I could say something like this.

I have lived here for 20 years or I have worked for my brother since I was 20 years old. So when you use the words for and since, they kind of indicate to you that you should be using the present perfect tense. The third situation where you would use the present perfect is to talk about an action that has been repeated between the past and now.

If I said I have visited her six times, it's an action that started in the past and it's happened five more times since the very first time I did it. I have visited her six times, an action that started in the past and was repeated many times. The fourth situation where you would use the present perfect is when the time of the action is not important.

I could ask a question like this. Have you studied ancient history? And you could respond by saying yes, I've studied ancient history.

So the time at which you studied ancient history is not important here. All that's important is that I want to know if you have studied ancient history. It's a little bit of a tricky one to learn as an English learner, but it's definitely a very common usage of the present perfect, to talk about something where the time that that thing happened is not important in the conversation.

The fifth situation where you would use the present perfect is to talk about an action that was recently completed and you would use the word just in the sentence. You could say this. I have just finished the book.

That means that you were reading the book a few moments ago and you read the last page just in the last hour or in the last few minutes. So you do need the word just and you would use sentences like I have just finished the book. Let's talk a little bit about how to form the negative using the present perfect.

In order to do this, you simply add the word not between the conjugation of have and the past participle. So I could say this. I have not studied for my test.

I have not visited by sister. You can see I simply added the word not between the verb have and the past participle. Now we have a sentence in the negative.

Hey, I was just editing the video and I realized I forgot to mention we use contractions in the negative as well. We say things like I haven't called, you haven't called, he hasn't called, she hasn't called, we haven't called and they haven't called. So there you go.

I just pop in here for a sec and add this little clip. Enjoy the rest of the lesson. We should also look at how to form a question using the present perfect.

We do this by inverting the sentence. We flip the subject and the verb to have. So you would say things like this.

Have you cleaned your room? And you could respond by saying yes, I have cleaned my room. Have you called your mum?

And you would respond by saying yes, I have called my mum. So to form a question using the present perfect, you simply flip the subject of the sentence with the verb to have and put a question mark at the end. Hey, thank you so much for watching this little lesson on the present perfect.

I hope it helped you a little bit to understand more how to use this English verb tense. I'm Bob the Canadian. If you're new here, don't forget to click that red subscribe button over there and give me a thumbs up if you enjoyed watching this English lesson and if you have a bit more time, why don't you stick around and watch another English lesson.