"Have you ever...?" How to use Present Perfect immediately

171

Hi, my name is Rebecca, and in today's lesson, you're going to learn how to use the present

perfect easily and correctly to ask questions and also to answer.

Now, the present perfect does make students nervous.

They feel a little bit confused about when to use it, how to use it, and so on.

So what I'm going to do today is show you a phrase that you can use that will make it

easier for you to start using this tense and include it in your conversational English.

There are two ways to learn tenses in English.

One is to study the grammar part of it, and the other part is to actually jump right in

and start using it.

So today, we're using the second approach, and I'm going to give you some expressions

that you can use in English using the present perfect tense, okay?

So let's go to the board and get started.

Okay, so the expression that I'm teaching you today that you can use with the present

perfect tense is this one.

It's a question, "Have you ever?"

The question, "Have you ever?" means, "Have you even once in your life, okay?

Have you at any time in your life done a certain thing?"

And we're going to talk about what those things are.

But when we say "ever", we mean even once in your life, okay?

So let's look at some examples.

Now, as you can see, even though the question starts off like this, "Have you ever", right?

Using the present perfect, which is "have", however, you could use regular verb with it,

or you could use irregular verbs with it, right?

So if you use "Have you ever" with a regular verb, it would sound like this.

"Have you ever lived in Japan?"

"Have you ever worked in a large company?"

"Have you ever traveled to Spain?"

"Have you ever played tennis?"

Or "Have you ever used an iPad?"

So you can see that we could use present perfect, and if the verb that you're using is a regular

verb, then you simply use the past tense form, which is usually with "d" or "ed", correct?

So that's usually a little bit easier.

It becomes a little more challenging when we use the present perfect with irregular

So irregular verbs are those which have a different form, as they have the base form,

they have the simple past form, and then they have a third form, right?

And that's the past participle, which you have to learn by heart.

There's no other way to use it, okay?

You have to memorize this.

And most people remember from school learning this sort of long list of irregular verbs

in their three forms, okay?

For example, "see", "saw", "seen", right?

"Break", "broke", "broken".

That third form is what we need to use here.

So these kind of questions could be, "Have you ever been to Tokyo?"

Not "Have you ever was", but "Have you ever been to Tokyo?"

"Have you ever read this book?"

That means even once in your life, have you read this book?

Or "Have you seen them live?"

In this case, "them" might be a band that you like, right?

"Have you ever seen them live?" or "Have you ever seen that movie?"

"Have you ever eaten Mexican food?"

"Have you ever taken the TOEFL exam?"

"Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

That's an expression that we use sometimes, a kind of a question, a rhetorical question.

When we learn about something that seems unbelievable, we say, "Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

Maybe somebody's behavior or some kind of a rule or some bureaucratic process that we

find unbearable, we say, "Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

That's the context in which you might be able to use that question.

So "Have you ever" is the key term that you want to use with regular verbs or irregular

verbs, and this is a way you can start using present perfect today when you go out and

Now, one other point, and that's the difference between these two words, "gone" and "been".

So when we use them in a sentence, it makes a difference if you say, "I have gone somewhere"

or "I have been somewhere".

And especially if you're talking about someone else, if you say that he has gone somewhere

or if we say he has been somewhere, there is a difference.

So let's learn what that difference is.

It's really easy.

So let's look at this example, right?

Where's Marcelo?

We could say, "He's gone to Brazil."

So in this example, where somebody's asking, "Where's Marcelo?" and somebody's answering,

"He's gone to Brazil," we know that Marcelo is not here.

Marcelo is in Brazil, right?

Because he's gone to Brazil.

He is not here.

Now, let's say Marcelo returns, and you're talking to Marcelo.

Marcelo and you are in the same room, and you say, "Hi, Marcelo.

Long time, no see."

Long time, no see is an expression that we use sometimes in English when we haven't met

anyone... someone for a long time.

Long time, no see."

So Marcelo says, "Yes, I've been to Brazil."

So when Marcelo says, "I've been to Brazil," he means that he went there, and now he has

So now both of you are in the same place, and when he says, "I've been somewhere," it

means I went there, and I came back.

So that's a small difference that you need to know about "gone" and "been".

If you'd like to do a quiz on this important subject, on which you can almost do lots and

lots of practice, and almost never enough practice with Present Perfect, please go to

our website, www.engvid.com.

Thanks very much.

Good luck with your English.