Number one, have you seen that movie?

That's the present?

Perfect.

Number two, I had never eaten pizza before I arrived here, That's the past, perfect verb tense and finally the future perfect.

By the time the ski season finishes next April, I will have probably skied 50 times now Looking at these examples, you might question somebody skiing 50 times.

However, at our ski hill nearby, a lot of our students can actually get up there and snowboard nearly 50 times a year.

So when you get a season's pass you get a lot of use out of it.

Anyway, uh let's find out where these verb tenses fit in a timeline.

Let's take a look at this timeline.

So number one, have you seen that movie?

The question is asking if you have seen that movie sometime in the past up until now.

So the, the answer could be simple past yes, I saw that movie last night or I haven't seen that movie, but if you answer it, yes, I have seen that movie, then we don't know exactly when it happened and for the conversation and the question answer perhaps that's not important.

So you have a choice on that one.

Number two, I had never eaten pizza before I arrived here notice how this one is set up with this simple past and when we say before arrived that would be here sometime in the past I arrived and before that I had never eaten pizza past.

Perfect.

So quite often when the past perfect is used.

We have to put a simple past first and set it up with one of these things before and there's that add verbal before uh and number three the future perfect, same thing as the past in that we're setting it up with a time in the future and that time is next april.

So by the time the ski season finishes and look at that verb, it's in the present, next april.

Even though it's a future idea that somewhere up here right there, so the future perfect is going to be along this way.

So I will have probably skied happens along here up until the future which would be the finish of the ski season in april so you can see that the past perfect and the future perfect are usually uh set up nicely with one of these add verbal before and by the time and that will help you understand exactly when these verb tenses are happening present, perfect continuous or the present, perfect progressive depending on who your grammar teacher is or which grammar book you're reading.

Um how do they work?

Well here's here are some examples of how the present, perfect continuous works.

Take a look at number one, it has been snowing but it has stopped now, so there's your present, perfect, continuous, it has been snowing and this is an action that has just stopped or recently finished.

So quite often the present perfect continuous is used there, notice that I have said it has stopped now, if it were still snowing, you might want to do it this way, it has been snowing for four hours, it has been snowing since 10 o'clock this morning, that means that the snow continues to fall.

So when you want to do it that way with the idea that something is continuing, put a four or a sense after this and of course you don't bother with that part.

Number two is a little bit of the same thing.

An example here, have you been swimming?

Your eyes look bloodshot, that means your eyes turned red because you've been swimming without maybe without goggles, Have you been swimming?

That the question means not now.

Something that's just recently completed.

So there's a question with the present, perfect continuous.

Number three is an action that's repeated over time.

Quite often.

These hobbies or these sports are done this way, Joanna has been running since she was eight years old.

In other words she's pretty fit now.

So Joanna has been running since and there's your since or four, you would put in there as I've done in number four?

I've been living here for 10 years Now.

The verbs like in number four live work and study quite often.

The present, perfect continuous is used interchangeably with the present.

Perfect.

But probably most people would use the present perfect continuous in these to answer the question, how long have you been doing something?

Uh And the main ones that come to mind for us are, how long have you been living in this town?

How long have you been studying, English?

How long have you been working at that job?

So the present continuous.

A present, Perfect continuous.

Sorry, is quite often used for those ones.

Here's a fun way you can practice your verb tenses in this case I'm using the verb wake up and I'm going to use the same verb throughout just to keep it simple.

But after you get used to this sort of thing and you're you're doing your drill orally.

You can change the verbs to anything you want obviously.

All right, let's take a look at this example number one.

These days I wake up early so I have my adverb beall that tells me that when it's going to be happening and in this case it becomes simple present so I can start with that these days I wake up early then I go to the simple past Yesterday I woke up at 5:30 which is early.

You can fill whatever you want in there The day before yesterday I woke up at 4:30.

Another simple past.

So so far since last monday then Now we go present.

Perfect.

I have woken up early four times Or three times whatever your account is in this case.

Then we go to the past Perfect here Before this week however, I had never woken up so early and then we go to the future.

Tomorrow.

I will wake up at 3:30 a.m. Or tomorrow.

I'm going to wake up at 5 30 AM and then finally we go to the future.

Perfect.

By the end of this week I will have woken up early five times.

So that goes up to the future.

So you can see how practicing these verb tenses.

It gets in this drill, it gets a little bit repetitious, but you can also put it into the passive, you can do active voice verbs uh and you you can just drill yourself on these and it should get a lot easier to use the different verb tenses.