i have studied english i have been
studying english
are these sentences the same or are they
different
let's find out
[Music]
hey everyone my name is wes this is
interactive english and the channel is
all about trying to help
you practice and improve your english
skills and today
i want to help you improve your grammar
because i want to talk about
the difference between two verb tenses
the present perfect
tense and the present perfect continuous
and these two verb tenses can confuse
many
english learners who may not be sure
about how and when to use them as well
as
if there are any differences between
these two tenses
so before we talk about the differences
between these two tenses
i want to focus on how and when we use
them
and let's first begin with the present
perfect tense which
on its own can be very confusing because
there are many languages
that do not even have a present perfect
tense so
i want to first begin with how you're
going to form the present perfect
you're going to have a helping verb and
a main verb
the helping verb is going to be have and
the main verb is going to be the past
participle and we often use the present
perfect to talk about a
finished action in the past at an
unspecified time we don't know when it's
happened
and it may have happened once or even
more than once
so let's look at this sentence right
here i've been to china
there i am right there again we have the
helping verb
have plus the past participle ben
it is the past participle of the verb to
be and
you know that this happened in the past
it's finished
but you don't know when it's an
unspecified time i've been to china or i
could say well i've been to barcelona
twice this happened in the past we don't
know when
but we know that it happened more than
once there were two different trips
to barcelona one thing that i want to
say about the present perfect tense is
that when you
use it the the result is really what
matters it's like you're more interested
in the result than the action and i will
come back to this when i talk to you
about
the present perfect continuous so let's
let's think of this situation right here
i'll
i'll use a question and say have you hit
the like button
all right this is a question in the
present perfect
the the helping verb have the past
participle hit that's our main verb
have you hit the like button and again
i'm really more interested in that
result and i really
am and i hope you would say yes i have
hit the like button
it happened in the past sometime between
when the video started and
right now and if you have let me know
write that to me
in the comments just say yes i have hit
the like button
practice writing using the present
perfect and then i will tell you
that you are awesome all right so with
all of those examples that i just
gave you we were talking about finished
actions
in the past so let's now
move to the present perfect continuous
and let's look at how this verb tenses
form again we're going to use the
helping verb
have plus the past participle of the
verb to be
which has been have been plus
our main verb with an ing at the end all
right so in this case
it's like we have two helping verbs have
been and then the main verb
and we use the present perfect
continuous to talk about an
unfinished action that started in the
past
it has continued to right now which is
the present
and then it will likely continue into
the future so i could say
well even right now i've been teaching
this lesson it's an unfinished action it
started in the past
it has continued until right now and
it's going to continue
into the future and i hope you keep
watching now one thing that i will say
about the present perfect continuous is
that when you
use this verb tense the focus is more on
the
action because something is continuing
so
with the present perfect tense the focus
is on the result
with the present perfect continuous the
focus is more on the action one thing
that i want to remind you of
and the reason why i'm so close is
because i want you to remember this
is that there are many non-action verbs
that you should not use in the
continuous
tense and i'm putting a list of these
verbs up here right now
so you you should not use these verbs
with the present perfect continuous but
again with english there the people are
always breaking these rules
especially in spoken english but just to
give you an example
the if i give you a sentence like oh i
have an iphone i'm talking about
uh ownership possession i could use it
in the present perfect tense and say
yeah i've had an iphone
for a long time uh it's an iphone 6 so
it's pretty old
but i could not use it in the continuous
tense
and say i've been having an iphone that
just sounds awkward so
just keep that in mind there are many
non-action verbs
that you should just avoid using in the
continuous tense so now let's look at
some differences
between the present perfect tense and
the present perfect continuous
and i want to make some quick
comparisons so you can see a clear
difference
between these two verb tenses especially
how the focus is different so let's look
at these two sentences
right here we have redecorated our home
and we have been redecorating our
home the sentence in the present perfect
we have redecorated our home
it's talking about an action that
started in the past
and it's now finished we don't know when
it started we don't know when it ended
but the focus is on that result that
yes it's it's finished the home it's it
has been redecorated
with the present perfect continuous
we're talking about an
unfinished action it started in the past
and it's still going on right now so the
focus
is on that action that continuing action
also and this may help you know when you
should use the present perfect
continuous
if we're talking about an unfinished
action that started
in the recent past people may use this
verb tense with the words
recently or lately so i could say well
recently
we've been redecorating our home or
lately we've been redecorating our home
that tells me that this action it
started in the recent past
it's a continuing action that's gone
until now and yes
it's probably going to continue into the
future here are another couple of
sentences
i have thought about buying a new phone
or i've been thinking about buying a new
phone
so with the present perfect it suggests
that
okay i i thought about this in the past
and then maybe i decided well no not to
buy
a new phone it's just something i
thought about and then i stopped
thinking about it
and as you can see i still have this old
iphone 6
and maybe i just made the decision not
to buy one if i use the present perfect
continuous and say well i've been
thinking about buying a new phone
that that suggests that i have not made
a decision not yet
i'm still thinking about it and maybe
maybe in the future
i'm going to make a decision and upgrade
and get a new phone because
yes this iphone 6 it's pretty old and
then we get to these two sentences right
here the sentences that you
have been waiting for this entire lesson
i have studied
english versus i have been studying
english
and the difference between these two
sentences
is nothing well pretty much nothing
because they're interchangeable you can
use them
and they basically mean the same thing
because
with both of these sentences we're
talking about
an unfinished action and i know
this can be a bit confusing because
you're probably thinking like wait a
second wes
you told us that the present perfect
tense is used to talk about
finished actions at an unspecified time
in the past
yes that is true but you can also use
the present perfect tense to talk
about an unfinished action that started
in the past
and and it's gone on for a duration of
time or since
a point in time and those are two key
words that i really want you to remember
and be aware of
because we often use the present perfect
with those words for and since so i
could say
i have studied english for three years
a duration of time or i could say i've
studied
english since 2018 both of those
sentences
mean the exact same thing the only
difference
is for and since i could also say this
using the present perfect continuous
i've been studying english
for three years or i've been studying
english since
2018. so if somebody were to ask you how
long have you been learning english
you could respond with any one of those
sentences
it's it's really your pick there there's
not much difference between them
but there is a very there is very slight
difference of course
i didn't want to i didn't want to
disappoint you i wanted to really get
into details here so i was saving it
for the very end and let's talk about
those slight differences right now which
is going to help you
kind of will not only improve your
comprehension but your overall fluency
as well
so the good news is is that when the
present perfect
and the present perfect continuous are
basically interchangeable and they
pretty much mean the same thing
we're only talking about a handful of
verbs we're talking about
the verbs like teach play learn
study and work all right so those are
five verbs
that when you're using either verb tense
they're fairly interchangeable and they
mean the same thing but again
there may be a slight difference in a
certain context
situation it may be more appropriate to
use
one over the other so let's look at
these sentences right here we've lived
in budapes
for four years and we've been living in
budapest since
2017. so just looking at them
generally speaking they're very similar
they're they pretty much the same you
could use them interchangeably
but there may be a slight difference
when talking about
the permanent versus temporary so let me
give you a couple of other sentences
that i think are
probably a little easier to understand
when i talk about the difference between
permanent
and temporary so you're more likely to
use the present perfect tense
when when talking about an unfinished
action that's more permanent
and you're more likely to use the
present perfect continuous when you're
talking about an unfinished action
that's perhaps temporary so i could say
well i've worked for the company for 25
years
i'm using the present perfect it's
unfinished because i still work for the
company
and and it's more permanent it makes you
think well i'm not
looking for a job i'm not going to
change jobs i'm just giving you
this information i've worked for the
company for 25 years
if i say this that well i usually work
downtown
but i've been working at home ever since
the pandemic started
in this case i'm i'm referring to an
action that started in the past
it's unfinished because i'm still
working at home
but it's only temporary it makes you
think that in the future
then perhaps i'm not going to be working
at home anymore
i'm talking about a temporary situation
i've been working at home
ever since the pandemic started so
hopefully that makes it a little easier
to
understand the difference when i say
permanent versus temporary
and you could even apply this to other
sentences that
you may use interchangeably so those two
sentences that i told you a moment ago
we have lived in budapest for four years
or we've been living in budapest since
2017. in general you could use either
one
but again if you use the present perfect
if i say we've lived in budapest since
2017
then it's a more permanent situation it
might make you think well
uh we're not currently looking to change
the place that we live that we're
probably going to stay in budapest
if i say it using the present perfect
continuous
the focus is on that action that that
we're
we're still living here it's unfinished
but
it makes you think it may only be
temporary because
in the future that that's going to
change if the focus is on that action
in all likelihood that action is going
to change in the future
in which case we would we'll move
somewhere else
and that this is only temporary and if
you were to ask me i
would say the second one we've been
living in budapest since 2017 because
this is probably not going to be our
permanent home
in the future we will likely move
somewhere else so even though with those
five verbs work play live teach
study you can use these verb tenses
interchangeably you you could read
a little more information into it if you
want to think about whether something is
going to be more permanent
or if something is temporary i
hope that that this lesson was easy to
follow and easy to understand
i know that i went i tried to go into a
fair bit of detail
in in talking about this information so
that you have a better understanding
to help you improve your comprehension
but also your fluency as well
if you are talking to somebody and
you're trying to explain some situation
that you are going to use the
appropriate verb tense
between the present perfect and the
present perfect continuous if you
enjoyed this lesson
please hit that like button as always
thank you so much for watching and i
will see you next time