Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Grammar
Grammar
We use the Present Perfect to say that an action happened at an unspecified time before now.
The exact time is not important. You CANNOT use the Present Perfect with specific time
expressions such as: yesterday, one year ago, last week, that day, one day, etc.
We CAN use the Present Perfect with unspecific expressions such as: ever, never, once, many
times, several times, before, so far, already, yet, etc.
FORM:
[has/have + past participle]
The words "live," "work," "teach," and "study" are sometimes used in the Present Perfect
to show that something started in the past and has continued up until now. For example:
We use the Simple Past to express the idea that an action started and finished at a
specific time in the past. Sometimes, the speaker may not actually mention the specific
time, but they do have one specific time in mind.
Examples:
When the time is more important than the action, we use the simple past. On the other
hand, when the action is more important than the time, we use the present perfect.
FORM
We use the Present Perfect Continuous to show that something started in the past and
has continued up until now. "For five minutes," "for two weeks," and "since Tuesday" are
all durations that can be used with the Present Perfect Continuous.
Examples:
Past perfect
FORM
The Past Perfect expresses the idea that something occurred before another action in the past.
It can also show that something happened before a specific time in the past.
Examples:
I did not have any money because I had forgotten my wallet in the car.
John knew London so well because he had visited the city several times.
Had Susan ever studied Italian before she moved to Italy?
She only understood the movie because she had read the novel.
Mark had never been to sand dunes before yesterday.
We were not able to get a hotel room because we had not booked in advance.
Prefixes:
A prefix is a syllable added to the beginning of a word to change its meaning.
Suffixes:
A suffix is a syllable added to the end of a word to change its meaning.
Possessive (S)
When we want to show that something belongs to somebody or something, we usually add an
apostrophe + s ('s) to a singular noun and an apostrophe (') to a plural noun, for example:
When a name ends in s, we usually treat it like any other singular noun, and add 's:
But it is possible (especially with older, classical names) to just add the apostrophe ':
Irregular Plurals
Some nouns have irregular plural forms without s (man → men). To show possession,
we usually add 's to the plural form of these nouns: