I’ve read this article before. I swear I have read this article before. Hi, James. I’m just looking at this article and I am trying to think, “Have I read this before?” and then I thought, "Yes, I read it yesterday.” What’s the difference? Let’s take a look. Let’s go to the board.
I said, “I read the article” Then I said, “I’ve read the article.” Now, if you look there, I’ve written two things on the board. Number one... Number two... You’re probably saying to yourself, “So what.” Well, one... actually when we look at it, the past and the present perfect which is what I’ve written on the board, can have different meanings.
Sometimes they mean the exact same. In this case, there's not really much of a difference. "I read the article", "I've read the article". But sometimes we can use them to demonstrate two things that I want to point out to you today. So let's go to the board and take a look.
Let's start with "I read the article". Now, I kind of made a mistake. Because I should have done when I put this, "I read the article yesterday". Okay? "I read the article yesterday" gives you a specific time. And that's when I use it in the simple past. When we use the simple past, we actually have two uses for it. Number one, is to tell you something at a specific time, or number two, to tell you that you've completed something.
Now, when we use the present perfect, it also has a couple of jobs. So let's make a change or two to the board, okay? So I'm gonna take "I", and I'm gonna make it "I've". "I've" or "I have" (that's the contraction). Now here's the problem. I cannot say "I've read the article yesterday". That doesn't make any sense. Not in the present perfect.
So, first of all we have to get rid of this, and we have to get rid of this. By saying "I've read the article", we're using the present perfect tense. Now, let's go back, what is the present perfect? Well, the present perfect is something in the past has an effect on something now. Something here, in the past, has an effect on something here, in the present. Okay?
So what does this mean for us? Well, "I've read the article"--I'm saying somewhere here, I read it, but I'm telling you about it now. I'm not giving you a specific time. And a lot of times when we do this, we're saying something happened in the past, but it has an effect now, we're not giving a specific time. We're just letting you know it's occurred.
So the difference between the two is, if I say "I read", in the simple past (I was going to write "pimple past," sorry). I have to be specific. So we can use the S and the S to remind me that if I want to talk in the simple past, I should be specific. "I read the book yesterday", "I saw the man two hours ago", "I ate dinner at five o'clock".
Now, when we use the present perfect, we just want to say something happened in the past, but we don't have to give a specific time. This is going to lead to two simple rules that I'm going to put up.
Good. So we've got that up on the board, I'm sure you got that right. Now let's make it simple, this is way too complicated, this is not math! All right, so, here we go. Let's not make it like math. Because today's lesson was basically, what was it? Well, why do we use either the present perfect versus (if you're a soccer fan, like me) simple past. Now I gave you all that big verbiage, or a lot of words explaining why. I'm gonna make it simple, real simple, you won't forget, promise.
Present perfect: we can say for how long. That's it. How long. Or, how many times.
Simple past: specifically when. See I use that word specific, specific, remember? S, simple, specific--sorry, just a joke, a small joke. Okay. Specific time, when, is when you need a time--two o'clock, three o'clock, one, yesterday, 6 months from now, okay? So we use that for the simple past.
But if we want to talk about how long we've done something or how many times--and we're not being specific--then we use the present perfect. Cool? I thought you'd like that. Anyway, now you know why you use them. Now you'll know when to use them. And you'll also know something else.
Because I want you to come back to this very special place, since we have this very special time, maybe not here, but you'll come to, try this. www.engvid.com. I'll see you there, okay, don't forget. Simple past is what, what do we use it for, present perfect what, there. Now you know more than all the English people in the world. I'm joking. Anyway, see you at engvid.com, ciao.
