Dearest Alfred, I have been thinking about you every minute of every day since you left.
I can't believe it has already been seven days since you went away.
I thought I would tell you what I have been doing in the last week.
Hopefully, you haven't forgotten about your dear wife already!
I have read a lot more and I've listened to music by the fire every evening.
Your friend Robert has also been visiting regularly.
Anyway, the women's group and I have worked very hard over the past week in order to plan the summer fair.
Jane has even painted a ginormous poster to hang in the church hall.
Robert has also fixed our heating. He came around five days ago.
Robert even kindly offered to stay the night to ensure it was working properly.
He's been here ever since.
I have also sold the car.
I hope you don't mind, but Robert suggested we should go to Spain for the winter,
so we needed it for ticket money.
The house has also been put up for sale, whoops!
Anyway, must dash!
Robert has made a chicken casserole and he has told me not to be long. Talk soon! Ta-Ta!
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Today, we are talking about the present perfect and the present perfect continuous.
It sounds very confusing like present perfect, present perfect continuous. What does it mean?
But I am here to help!
At the beginning of this video, we saw a letter being written
and this letter featured heavily the present perfect and the present perfect continuous.
Go back and watch it as many times as you want!
So, let me use a couple of examples from that letter to explain what the present perfect tense is and how to use it.
So, let's start with the beginning of the letter.
"I have been thinking about you every minute of every day since you left" ...Oh so romantic!
Now the part that makes this the present perfect continuous is "I have been thinking".
Let's say we change the tense. Let's change it to the past simple.
"I thought about you every minute of every day since you left."
When you use the past simple, which is just I, the subject, and then the past simple version of the verb, thought,
It sounds like you've finished that action. It sounds like you're not thinking about them anymore.
I thought about you every minute and every day since you left, but now i'm not thinking about you.
Now I'm thinking about what i'm going to have for my dinner tonight.
So in this letter, the past simple tense doesn't work
because she wants Alfred to know that she's still thinking about him and she's still thinking about him every minute of every day.
Still. Now.
So that's why we use the present perfect continuous.
So we take the subject, I, then either have or has, depending on who the subject is,
then the word been, then the 'ing' form of the verb.
"I have been thinking"
And when we use the present perfect continuous, it sounds like I started thinking about you every minute of every day in the past,
but I'm still doing it now. Still right now. It's like a timeline.
It's like it started in the past, but it continues now. It's still happening now.
So the present perfect continuous is perfect for things that are unfinished. Things that carry on.
Let's find another example in this letter of the present perfect continuous!
"Your friend Robert has been visiting regularly."
Again, if we change this sentence to the past simple, "your friend Robert visited regularly",
it sounds like it's finished. Sounds like it's not happening anymore.
That's done. That's in the past. It's not happening anymore.
But she wants to emphasize that it's still happening now. He's still visiting regularly.
So it's the same thing. We take the subject, which is Robert,
and then has or have, depending on who the subject is (so in this context it's has),
then the word been, then the verb with 'ing' on the end.
Robert has been visiting.
Some real world examples of the present perfect continuous would be things like "I have been living in this country for seven years!"
I started living here seven years ago but I still live here now. It's carrying on. It's unfinished.
Or "she has been teaching for 50 years". Anything that started in the past and continues now and keeps happening
So now let's look at some examples of the present perfect tense.
"Jane has painted a ginormous poster."
Now this is where it can get a little confusing for some people,
because if we put this sentence in the past simple tense, let's say "Jane painted a ginormous poster"
it still kind of means the same thing because they are both actions that happened in the past and they're completed.
So why don't we just use the past simple tense?
Because when we use the past simple "Jane painted a ginormous poster",
it makes it sound like there's absolutely no relevance to what's happening now.
It makes it sound like this was something that happened in the past and literally doesn't matter anymore. It's completely irrelevant.
But actually in the context of the letter, the reason Jane has painted the poster is for an event that hasn't happened yet.
So it's still very relevant to now. It still links to the present even though she's finished painting the poster.
Let's look at another example: "Robert has made a chicken casserole:
So present perfect we take the subject, Robert,
then either has or have depending on the subject, (so in this case it's has),
then the past participle of the verb, so 'made' in this case.
But just make sure you learn, when you're learning your verbs,
make sure you learn: the present tense verb, the past simple form of the verb and the past participle
because you're going to need all three three of them!
Now again, let's put this sentence into the past simple tense. "Robert made a chicken casserole."
This sounds like the chicken casserole has already been eaten. He made it yesterday.
We ate it. It's already in my tummy and it's done.
However 'Robert has made a chicken casserole' sounds like yes, he made it in the past but it's still very relevant to now
because maybe we haven't eaten it yet or it's being put on the table now.
So the trick with the present perfect is finished events in the past
but the effect of those finished events are still relevant to right now.
That's why we're using the present perfect.
If you're a fan of sports and you've ever heard English commentary you might notice a lot of uses of the present perfect tense.
I know nothing about football but maybe they say something like:
"Oh Beckham has passed it to Rooney"
I don't even know if they've played in the same team together, I'll be honest!
But more importantly, Beckham has passed it to Rooney.
So yes, it's something Beckham did in the past, he kicked the ball and it's in the past,
but the effect of him passing the ball is still happening now. It's relevant now.
Once you get your head around the timeline and how the present perfect and present perfect continuous work
it's really really simple to do. It just takes a bit of practice.
So go back to the beginning of the video, listen to the letter one more time,
and try to find all of the uses of the present perfect tense or the present perfect continuous.
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Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you next time. Ta-ta!