Search results for 'tag:Present perfect tag:Speak english' matching tags 'Present perfect' and 'Speak english'

Re: Having done sth - only valid with Present Perfect?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:36:09 GMT

Hi,
I think I have asked a similar question before and I think a person believed to be a teacher/expert here answered that there is not need to say "having had lived" and the phrase "having lived" can be used in a past sentential context as well as in present sentential context.

Having lived (no need to use "having had lived") in *** for three years, he knows how to speak English.
Having lived (no need to use "having had lived") in *** for three years, he moved to another place.

I want to be confirmed of this though.

Re: I Want To Be Fluent English Speaker How Please?

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 11:22:20 GMT

Improving your motivation

Before you start reading, you should know this: Learning English requires action. You may know all the learning tips, but if you don't start doing things, you will achieve nothing. Therefore our method is not just for reading; it is for reading and doing.

You need two things to learn English well â passion and effective learning methods â and passion is the more important one. Why? Because passion makes you want to learn English; the learning methods only tell you how to do it faster.

If you love learning English:

You will do it regularly and spend more time on it.
Learning English will be easier for you. It will be easy for you to remember new words and grammar structures. It's because the brain easily remembers information on a subject that you like. (For example, some people like history and know everything about World War II. If you told a "normal person" to memorize all these facts, they would never do it.)
We know you may not love learning English. And even if you love it, you will sometimes not want to do it. This is how human psychology works â sometimes we are so lazy, bored, and tired that we don't want to do even the things that we like.

Here is what you can do when you don't feel like learning English:

Imagine yourself in the future
Imagine you can talk to native speakers just like you talk in your first language. Imagine other people wanting to speak English as well as you do. Imagine the possibility of writing e-mail to people from all over the world.

You should know that it is possible to learn English really well. Just look at other people who have done it.

Remember that you are already good
You already know some English (you're reading an article in English right now). That's a big success! Now it's time for more successes. Time to start using powerful methods of effective learning. Time to gain an impressive knowledge of English.

Remember there is a lot that you don't know
You are good, but your English probably isn't perfect. You probably can't understand English-language TV, read books in English, talk to native speakers easily, write letters without mistakes, etc.

You should never think your English is perfect. Even if you are the best student in your class, always try to find your weak areas and work on them. When you've learned to speak English well, your problems will be quite small: punctuation, rarely used grammar structures, rare words, understanding "street language". Right now, your problems are probably more basic: mistakes in pronunciation, small vocabulary, grammar problems with the present perfect tense and conditional structures.

Use your English whenever you can
This is very, very important. The more you use English, the more you will want to learn it.

Because English is so popular, you can use it everywhere. You can use Yahoo to find English-language websites with interesting information, you can watch American cartoons, you can play adventure games on your computer, you can read interesting books in English, or you can do other things that we write about.

If you do these things, you will not only have fun and learn English. If you see that a new English word lets you understand your favorite TV show (or communicate with people, or beat a computer game), you will want to learn more words. So you will learn English more, use it more, learn it more, use it more... If you also use effective learning methods, your English will grow faster than you can imagine.

Re: Differences between the English spoken in the United States and in Canada?

Clive — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 15:46:16 GMT

Hi,

Here are some comments. I was happy to get your questions, please write again if I can help you in any way, OK?

I would like to know if people in Canada use the present perfect tense and the present perfect progressive tense differently than the Americans. Are Canadians following the British style instead of following the American style?

From Raymond Murphyâs "Grammar in Use:"

The ceiling was white. Now itâs blue. She has painted the ceiling.

"Has painted" is the present perfect tense.

This time, the important time is that something has been finished. We are interested in the result of the action, not in the action itself.

The car is working again now. Tom has fixed it.
Somebody has smoked all my cigarettes. The packet is empty.

Annâs clothes are covered in paint. She has been painting the ceiling.
"Has been painting" is the present perfect continuous tense. We are interested in the action. It doesnât matter whether something has been finished or not. In the example, the action has not been finished.

Tomâs hands are very dirty. He has been fixing the car.

The above all sounds like what I'd hear in Ontario.

I showed this text to an American English speaker. She said they donât say it that way.

We don't say it that way. "Has been painting"----It says "it doesn't matter if the action has been finished or not." In American English, it matters. "Tom's hands are very dirty. He HAS BEEN fixing the car." We would say that if he's not finished fixing it.

So, what would they say if he's finished? Just 'He fixed the car'?

I'd say in Canada it doesn't matter, so we follow the BrE style. Of course, there are other ways to talk about this. You could say 'He is fixing the car' if he hasn't finished.

When I was at school to learn English, I had to use the British spelling (grey, centre, colourâ¦). What should I do about the perfect tenses? I donât know much about how people speak English in Canada. I have been living mostly in a French Canadian town.

Outside Quebec, Canada has always had a strong British tradition. This has been a source of strength in the constant Canadian concern about resisting the influences of our huge neighbour to the south. In language, this has helped BrE grammar and spelling to persist here, although it is a constant battle. I usually tell students that Canadian English is somewhere in the middle, between BrE and AmE. Levels of formality are one area where AmE influence is strong here.

Something to note is that Canada is taking so many immigrants now that the traditional British/French cultural difference is becoming a little outmoded. This will have an impact on the English we use here.

I'd say you'll be fine in English Canada, using the BreE approach to the perfect tenses.

So you are French Canadian? Have you visited Toronto?

A bientot, Clive

Clive, I saw on your profile that you live in Canada " src="/emoticons/emotion-5.gif">" src="/emoticons/emotion-5.gif">" src="/emoticons/emotion-2.gif">.

Thanks in advance,

SFB

Differences between the English spoken in the United States and in Canada?

SpoonfedBaby — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 09:24:16 GMT

Hello everybody,

I would like to know if people in Canada use the present perfect tense and the present perfect progressive tense differently than the Americans. Are Canadians following the British style instead of following the American style?

From Raymond Murphyâs "Grammar in Use:"

The ceiling was white. Now itâs blue. She has painted the ceiling.

"Has painted" is the present perfect tense.

This time, the important time is that something has been finished. We are interested in the result of the action, not in the action itself.

The car is working again now. Tom has fixed it.
Somebody has smoked all my cigarettes. The packet is empty.

Annâs clothes are covered in paint. She has been painting the ceiling.
"Has been painting" is the present perfect continuous tense. We are interested in the action. It doesnât matter whether something has been finished or not. In the example, the action has not been finished.

Tomâs hands are very dirty. He has been fixing the car.

I showed this text to an American English speaker. She said they donât say it that way.

We don't say it that way. "Has been painting"----It says "it doesn't matter if the action has been finished or not." In American English, it matters. "Tom's hands are very dirty. He HAS BEEN fixing the car." We would say that if he's not finished fixing it.

When I was at school to learn English, I had to use the British spelling (grey, centre, colourâ¦). What should I do about the perfect tenses? I donât know much about how people speak English in Canada. I have been living mostly in a French Canadian town.

Clive, I saw on your profile that you live in Canada .

Thanks in advance,

SFB

Re: I have hoped that

Mister Micawber — Thu, 26 May 2005 07:04:06 GMT

"Since my school days, I have always hoped that I could speak English." -- this sounds fine to me too, Paco.

It doesn't seem to be wrong, just rare. Overall, it is a mystery to me, but I have a feeling that the concept of 'hoping' is often connected with-- obviously-- 'a hope', that is, a discrete event rather than an ongoing desire inside.

The past perfect, 'had hoped', can easily represent a discrete event (prior to another past activity, of course), so we would say 'I had hoped that I would become a doctor, but I discovered that I couldn't stand the sight of blood.' This could easily apply to a single 'hope' that is retained, rather than a continuing feeling. In fact, if we want to express the continuing feeling, we are usually pressed into using the p.p. continuous: 'I had been hoping to meet Dr. Seuss for many years, when suddenly he walked in the door'-- thus showing that the hope was active and omnipresent to the speaker.

These contrasting uses are not so effective in present tenses, because the present perfect has other more common uses than to separate discrete events from ongoing ones. 'I have hoped' seems primarily to suggest the 'continuing from indefinite past to now' interpretation, and 'I have been hoping' seems more to suggest the 'heightened interest/politeness' factor. These interpretations are common in the present tenses, but not so in the past tenses-- I guess because the past is completed fact, and not so affected by courtesy.

Re your hope getting faint-- yes, and I think that is an example of the usual use of the past perfect, eh? The structure says that the hope happened first, then the U.S. visit occurred. It too seems suggestive of the idea that 'a hope' is often subconsciously considered a single event remembered rather than a continuing desire.

Does that get us anywhere?

Re: I have hoped that

paco2004 — Thu, 26 May 2005 02:46:24 GMT

Thank you for the quick reply.

"Hope" seems a very simple verb, but frankly I'm really far from confident about how to use the phrase "I hope that...." and its kin phrases. My grammar book (Egawa's "A New Guide to English Grammar) says we can use "hope" in the present perfect tense. Actually, however, "I have hoped that..." seems to be rarely used, as you know. So I am suspecting whether what the book is saying would be true.

Let me make a direct translation of a Japanese sentence that comes to my mind. That is,
"Since my school days, I have always hoped that I can(could?) speak English."
The original Japanese sentence sounds quite natural to me. But how about this translation? Is it natural as an English sentence? If it sounds unnatural to your ears, something might be wrong in my understanding the sense of the English verb "hope".

You seem to use "I had hoped that..." a lot, compared with "I have hoped that...". This may be because that construct has a special implication. Let me show you an example.
"I had hoped that I could speak in English fluently until I visited the States for the first time."
I think the past perfect construct "I had hoped that .,." here used implies the hope got fainted at the time of the first visit to the States. Is this interpretation right?

paco