www.eltcation.wordpress.com - Originally designed for speakers of Slavic languages, this presentation can be used to revise and consolidate tenses in the classroom or as self-study.
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Secret Knowledge
Brief Info about English tenses:
English tenses are not scary, and they are
very easy to understand and use if you
have the secret knowledge
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Secret Knowledge
unlike your language, there are also some
aspects of these tenses:
• Indefinite (or simple)
• Continuous
• Perfect
• Perfect Continuous
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And each tense has these aspects:
Present - Indefinite/ Continuous/ Perfect
Perfect Continuous
Past – Indefinite/ Continuous/ Perfect/
Perfect Continuous
Future – Indefinite/ Continuous/ Perfect
Perfect Continuous
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Secret Knowledge
Indefinite: what you know:
- You know when it happens, or happened,
or will happen
- Or how often it happens or happened, or
will happen
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Secret Knowledge
Examples:
• Nikola eats chocolate every day
what you know: when it happens: in
present, and how often it happens: every
day
(only smart and lucky people
eat chocolate every day!)
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and I will eat chocolate tomorrow!
what you know: when it will happen:
tomorrow
(yeah, and it will be a HUGE bar of
chocolate!)
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Secret Knowledge
Continuous: what you know:
- You know when exactly it is/was/ will be
taking place and it is/was/will be still
taking place – continues (or continued/
will continue)
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Secret Knowledge
Examples:
• Nikola is eating chocolate now, don’t
disturb him!
What you know: when exactly it’s
happening: it’s happening in present,
and it continues
It’s happening NOW, at this very
moment:
do you hear him chewing it?
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More examples:
• Ana was eating chocolate, when Nikola
came back home from school (and she
was eating HIS chocolate!)
• What you know: when exactly it was
taking place, and it was still taking place
when Nikola was home – so he was there,
looking at Ana, while she was
eating his chocolate…how
goshy gosh is that?
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• More examples:
• And I will be eating chocolate at 7 o’clock
tomorrow!
• What you know: when exactly it will be
taking place and it will still be taking
place! It’s not something I’ll
quickly do and forget,
nah,
I’ll be eeeeaaaatiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing
chocolate
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Secret Knowledge
Perfect: what you know:
- That it happens/happened/ will happen
before something else
happens/happened/will happen, or by a
certain time
(BUT: you can never say when or
when exactly it happened
without ‘this something’ (another
action) or ‘by which time’ (certain time)
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Secret Knowledge
• Examples:
• Nikola has already eaten all his chocolate
• What you know: you don’t know when
Nikola did that, but you know that by now
Nikola has eaten it and
now there’s NO chocolate left:
he HAS EATEN it!
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Secret Knowledge
Examples:
• Ana had eaten all the chocolate before
Nikola came back home.
What you know: when Nikola came home
there was NO chocolate left as Ana
HAD EATEN it all!
(yeah, girls can be so evil at
times)
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Secret Knowledge
Perfect Continuous: what you know:
- For how long it continues
/continued/will continue before or
by a certain time
(or since what time, but anyway,
you
can count how long…just use your
math skills)
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Secret Knowledge
Examples:
• Nikola has been eating chocolate for 25
minutes already.
What you know: how long Nikola has been
doing it and is still doing
Look at his happy face,
he HAS BEEN EATING chocolate
for 25 minutes and is still eating it!
(happy happy, joy joy!)
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More examples:
• Ana had been eating chocolate for 30
minutes when Nikola came back home
from school.
What you know: how long she had
been doing that and
she was still doing by the time
Nikola came back home…
for 30 minutes!!
