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English Verbs
English Verbs
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sentence.
Sometimes we want tomato soup with some other ingredients, like onions — time.
And sometimes we might also want to add spices to it (with or without the onions) —
these represent judgement.
There are two of these: the present simple and the past simple.
“The present simple is used for things that happen on a regular basis or things that are
true all the time.”
But what about …
You’re looking into a glass case at an old artefact. Let’s imagine it’s an old vase with
some sort of pattern on the side … maybe with giraffes on it.
You have no real connection with the vase. You’re not really affecting it in any way, and
it’s not really affecting you.
It was there long before you were born and will probably be there long after you leave
this Earth.
When we use it, we are simply expressing an objective fact — no opinions and no
interpretations.
It’s also binary — it’s either true or it isn’t. There’s no grey area. So it’s complete and
undivided.
You can say, “Wood floats on water.” But even if you didn’t say it, or if you never existed,
it would still be true.
But why doesn’t he say, “I’m now pronouncing you man and wife”?
When we use words like “pronounce,” “declare,” “announce” and “promise,” we’re both
saying something and doing it at the same time — the saying is the doing … if you know
what I mean.
As we’ll see later, when we use the present continuous — “I’m now pronouncing …” —
we signal that what we’re saying is temporary.
But that’s no good, right? You’re getting married! You want it to last forever!
You want the words that the priest says to be timeless.
When we use the present simple, (“I now pronounce you …”) it feels more real and more
objective.
That’s also why we say, “I promise that I didn’t steal the rabbit,” instead of “I’m
promising I didn’t steal the rabbit.”
➤ “We were just sitting around playing backgammon, when Tyler suddenly walks
in and starts shouting at us!”
When we use the past simple, it’s very remote. We put a distance between ourselves and
the events we’re describing.
But sometimes we want to make the events in our stories feel more real — more
immediate.
That’s when we switch from the past simple to the present simple.
➤ “Get out!”
But please don’t get out. Stay! We have a lot of things to talk about!
It makes them feel more objective and more complete. As a result, they feel more
certain and less likely to change.
The vase in the museum doesn’t affect your life, and what you do doesn’t really affect
the vase.
And in the same way, when you say, “The game starts in half an hour,” you’re expressing
the fact that you have no control over this.
If you disappeared from the face of the Earth, or if you hadn’t even been born, the game
would still start at seven.
➤ “Then I mix the vinegar into the salad, and I add four slices of avocado.”
You’re cooking!
If you’re showing me how to do something, you’re not just showing me that you can do
it — you’re also showing me that I can do it, too.
You want me to know that whatever you’re doing, it’ll be the same when I do it.
In fact, you want me to know that it doesn’t matter who does it or when they do it.
That’s when the present simple is useful — because it’s objective and timeless.
➤ “Chapter four: Our hero meets his enemy and plays golf with him.”
Back in the 19th century, instead of just saying “chapter one,” “chapter two,” etc., a lot of
book chapters would also describe what happens in each chapter.
And the writer would (almost) always use the present simple.
Because it’s objective and undivided, it gives the description an element of authority.
You can’t argue with it.
Also, much like the story about Tyler shouting at us, it’s immediate. This means that it
feels closer and more real, making it more interesting and exciting.
“Chapter 27 atones for the unpoliteness of a former chapter; which deserted a lady, most
unceremoniously”
The past simple (or looking at the vase from far away)
What it’s called at school:
“We use the past simple to describe single events that happened in the past.”
“Thanks for booking an appointment with us. What was your name, again?”
“I’d tell you if I knew.”
“He said he was Brad Pitt.”
“I wish I knew.”
“Take a jacket. It could snow later.”
Well. Imagine that vase, but this time it’s really far away.
An objective fact
Complete and undivided
Remote and somehow far away from us
As you can see, it’s just like the present simple but further away.
“But what does ‘further away’ mean?” I can hear you ask.
Good question.
We use the remote form to express things that are further away in various ways.
Sometimes we use the past simple to make things more polite — and being polite is all
about putting a respectful distance between the speaker and the listener.
For example, when we’re asking for information from someone, especially information
that might be a little sensitive like names, phone numbers, email addresses, credit card
numbers and favourite type of giraffe, then sometimes it’s good to use the past simple.
It puts a little distance between us and the information we’re asking for.
That’s why “Could you pass the salt?” sounds a bit more polite than “Can you pass the
salt?”
Back in the very early days of Clark and Miller, I wrote a post about “if” sentences.
In the post, I wrote about how we “push the grammar to the past” when something
becomes less certain or less real.
When we do this, we’re expressing a distance between what we’re saying and reality.
The same thing also happens when we’re making guesses or speculating … when we’re
not sure if it’s happened or if it’s going to happen:
That’s also why we say, “He could’ve left before the film finished,” and not “He can have
left before the film finished.”
➤ “He said he was Brad Pitt.”
As you can see, we can use the remote form to distance ourselves from responsibility.
Usually with phrases like “He said …” or “I think that …” or “I’d imagine that …” or even “I
was led to believe that …”
Aspect Forms
OK. So those were the “pure forms” of the verb — the tomatoes in our tomato soup.
When we use the “pure forms,” we’re simply stating a fact — something that isn’t
connected to us.
So how about — and let’s be open-minded about this — how about we smash the
security glass …
You can make it go faster, so that it flashes by briefly, or slower, so that we experience it
for longer.
It’s still a vase, but you’re giving it mobility — you’re adding a sense of dimension to its
life.
The language we use can make things feel shorter or longer. It can also make us look
forward or backwards.
When we add aspect, we don’t change the facts of a sentence, but we change how it
feels in relation to time.
When we use the continuous sentences, we’re not changing the meaning of the
sentence — we’re changing how it feels in terms of time.
We use it to introduce this sense of limitation — to put walls in time to mark a beginning
and an end.
Well, normally, when we talk about where we live, we just say, “I live in Burkina Faso,” (if
you live in Burkina Faso, of course).
But sometimes we want to send a signal to the person we’re speaking to.
Maybe we want to say, “Yeah — I live in Burkina Faso now, but I’m not sure if I’m going
to be there forever. It doesn’t totally feel like home, and I’m thinking of moving to Mali
next year. You know, for the music.”
That’s when we’d use the continuous: “I’m living in Burkina Faso.”
➤ “We’d been waiting for about an hour” and “We’d waited for about an hour”
Well — in both cases, you waited for an hour, which is far too long. You should
complain.
Back in the distant past (well, in 2017), I wrote a post about how “we’d waited …” feels
like you’re in a helicopter looking down at a forest.
You’re looking down at it, and you see it all together — one indivisible thing.
I also wrote about how “We’d been waiting …” feels more like being inside the forest.
It puts you in the middle of the action.
That’s because, by adding the continuous into the mix, you’re emphasising the
incompleteness of the action.
It’s the psychological interpretation of time that makes that hour of waiting seem
slower and unending, even if it does, at some point, end.
You’ve been learning Somali? How interesting! How’s it going? Can you swear at taxi
drivers yet?
The continuous feels incomplete. There’s more to learn! You’re still on the journey.
But have you ever stopped to think about why we use the present continuous for the
future?
This makes sense when you consider the beginning as the point in time when we made
the plan and the end as the time when we actually carry out our plan.
Stative verbs!
The verbs that never (well, almost never) take the continuous form.
Why?
Because these actions are indivisible — you can’t make them longer or shorter, and you
can’t place a limit on them, so they’re also timeless.
That’s why!
The perfect aspect (or driving the vase in reverse)
“We use the past perfect to describe actions that happened before a point in the past.”
“We use the present perfect to describe actions that started in the past and are still
happening now.”
“We use the future perfect to describe an action that will be completed before a time in
the future.”
Also, those examples don’t include other ways we use the perfect, like “I like having
written” and “He must’ve gone out — his shoes are gone.”
So let’s forget about thinking about the small differences between the past perfect and
the present perfect and the future perfect and so on.
You took a fact (the vase) and you started moving it in a certain direction (with the
remote-control truck).
When driving a vase around a museum on a remote-control truck, it’s sometimes fun to
hit the “reverse” lever, right?
OK. So remember how we looked at how the remote form (or “past simple”) was like
looking at the vase far away?
Well, once we’ve put the vase on that remote-control truck, we are now linked to the
vase — through magic!
No, not really. We’re linked via electronic radio signals or something. I don’t know how
remote controls work …
So it doesn’t matter how far away the vase is — we’re still connected to it.
When we use the perfect forms, we’re looking back, but keeping a connection.
So if we’re using the present perfect, we’re looking back from now.
That’s why “Have you visited Burj Khalifa?” is more about your experience now. Once
you’ve answered this question, we can decide how to continue the conversation.
That’s why “Wow! You’ve shaved your hair off!” is more about your status now — not the
experience of cutting your hair.
That’s also why “I’ve been waiting here for ages!” is more about how annoyed you are
now — not so much the experience of waiting.
Also, you should totally complain. No one should wait for that long.
OK. So we keep a connection with the present by using the present perfect.
So it makes sense that if we’re talking about the past, we can do exactly the same thing,
right?
And we can — when we want to look back from a point in the past, we use the perfect
again. But this time it’s the past perfect:
There’s really no difference. You’re just looking back somehow.
And of course, if you’re talking about the future — it’s exactly the same:
There’s no real reason to imagine these as different concepts.
All we need to know is that we’re looking back from some point in time.
Good question …
But in this case (with “must”) we’re using the perfect to look back with speculation:
It’s basically how we can push modal verbs into the past.
In this case, the first verb (“like”) is in the present simple — it’s timeless.
So we’re looking back at any time when we’ve written from the time of liking.
It doesn’t matter when the first verb (“like”) happens — the main thing is that we’re
looking back from it.
It doesn’t matter — we’re looking back from whenever that verb is.
“Going to” for the future (or driving the vase forward)
So, the perfect form is a way of looking back from a certain point in time, right?
And that’s a bit like driving the vase on the remote control in reverse but still keeping a
connection to where we are:
“Going to” works in exactly the same way, but instead of looking back from where we
are, we’re looking forward:
It’s really that simple.
Good question.
But they both signal something different about how you feel about the situation.
When we use the continuous (“I’m doing it!”), we’re showing that we’ve already made a
plan:
We’re in the middle of the plan. It’s all sorted out — we can relax.
When we have our vase on a remote-control truck, it’s passing us fast and we need to
think quickly about where it’s going to go next.
Sure — we definitely need to look forward and decide where we’re going.
But we also need to look back and ask ourselves some questions:
How fast is it going? Which direction is it coming from? Is it going straight or is it turning
a corner?
We take the events that lead up to now, look at them, and then make a decision about
where to go next.
And that’s how “going to” works — it’s all about making a decision or a prediction about
what happens next based on what’s happened up until now.
That’s why we say things like, “I’m going to sneeze” (because I can feel it right now).
Or “It’s going to rain” (because … look at those massive dark clouds!).
So, when we use “going to,” we’re basically talking about an informed decision.
Maybe the decision was made in the past about the past:
➤ “I was gonna tell you tomorrow, but since you’re here, I’ll tell you now.”
Sometimes the decision was made in the past about the future.
➤ “I’ve been going to tell you for ages.”
When you use “going to,” you’re not making a statement about the future.
You’re making a statement about how the future looks from now.
These plans don’t exist in the future — they exist now (“I’m going to get out of here”) or
even in the past (“I was going to buy him a drink”).
OK.
So we can make a basic tomato soup with the “pure” forms of the verb.
We can make it more interesting with onions by controlling the time elements of a
sentence.
Modal verbs
To be fair, each modal verb (“will,” “would,” “can,” “could,” “must,” “should,” “may,”
“might”) is taught differently at school.
I mean, you know the difference between “can” and “must,” right?
But they all have something in common …
When we use the “pure form” of a verb — present simple or past simple — we’re just
stating a fact. We’re not making any judgement about time.
When we use one of the “aspect forms,” like the perfect or the continuous, we start to
add our own interpretation about time — maybe the length of time or the direction of
time.
Well, if using the “pure form” is like looking at a vase in the museum without really
interacting with it at all, and using an “aspect form” is like driving the vase around the
museum on a remote-control truck, then using modals is like getting a pen out, and
writing on the vase about how you feel:
In other words, non-modal sentences are about the people and things in the sentence.
“Jasmine loves cats” is just about Jasmine and cats.
But if you say, “Jasmine must love cats,” it’s about Jasmine, cats and … you.
The word “must” has introduced your personal attitude into the sentence.
Your attitude about this might change over time, so modals are completely related to
the time of speaking.
can only appear once in a clause. (You can’t say, “I can must give him the keys
back.”)
are about the SPEAKER of the sentence as well as the “characters” in it.
are completely connected to the time of speaking.
➤ “I must see Patricia before she leaves” vs. “I have to see Patricia before she
leaves”
The difference?
There’s no one pointing a gun at her and demanding that she sees Patricia.
Maybe Patricia’s the boss and has told her to come to her office.
Or maybe she’s a visiting aunt, and there’s a sort of external moral obligation.
We can say that “must” means “I assert that it’s necessary that …” while “have to” simply
means, “It is necessary that …”
➤ “Congwei can finish the report himself” vs. “Congwei is able to finish the report
himself”
Remember this:
When we’re talking about the future with “going to,” we’re both looking behind us, to
see how we got to now, and in front of us, to make a decision or prediction about what’s
going to happen next.
“They’re definitely going to come” suggests that we’ve looked at evidence, both behind
and in front of us.
“Will” is very similar, but we’re not looking behind us, and we’re not looking at evidence.
Back in February last year, I wrote a post about all the different ways we can use “will.”
When we use “will,” we’re saying, “Based on the present situation and my personal view
of what I’m talking about, it is true that …”
Or to put it simply, “This is how I feel the world works right now.”
That’s why we can use “will” when we’ve basically calculated something:
“Where’s Henrik?”
“It’s after 9, so he’ll be in bed now with a cup of hot chocolate reading the Financial
Times.”
or
In both these sentences, we’re just saying, “This is how I feel the world works right now.”
OK!
If you made it this far, then you are a true warrior! Good work!
These are like taking the vase on a journey around the museum on a remote-control
truck.
They’re still facts, but we’re controlling how they work with time.
They immediately include the speaker’s attitude or feeling about the sentence.
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