UNIT 2: WAYS OF TALKING

Grammar Focus:past simple – present perfect

Cristian Fontanez L.

English Teacher

M.A. in English Language Teaching

LESLIE : Let’s watch “The mistery of the castle”.PETER : I’ve already seen it! I watched it last Friday!LESLIE : What about “The secret in the lake”?PETER : Stanley and I have seen that, too!LESLIE : Well, you’ve already seen all the videos!

What can we do now?PETER : We could watch the football match on TV!

Past Simple Utilizamos el pasado simple para hablar de

eventos ya terminados o que ocurrieron antes del momento del habla.

Orlando lost his hearing at the age of five.

“Before then, I didn’t know I was deaf and that I was different!.

English in Mind 3A, p.12.

Formamos el pasado simple con verbos regulares agregando la terminación –ed al infinitivo.

Visit = They visited churches and musemus.

Con los verbos irregulares, debemos cambiar el verbo por su forma correspondiente en pasado.

Go = He went to a restaurant.[Ver tabla de verbos irregulares.]

Formamos el negativo del pasado simple con didn’t (did not) y el verbo en infinitivo He didn’t like old churches.

Formamos preguntas con did o didn’t y el verbo en infinitivo.

Did he like old churches?

Present perfect

Usamos el presente perfecto simple para conectar el pasado y el “ahora”.

Deaf teenagers Orlando Chavez (16) and German Resendiz (17) have been friends since kindergarten.

English in Mind 3A, p.12.

Formamos el presente perfecto con have/has y un verbo en participio.

Usamos diferentes expresiones para el pasado simple y el presente perfecto.

Past simple Present perfect

Ten minutes ago For

Yesterday Since

Last week Just

When I was… Already

Yet

Ever

never

References Bolton & Goodey. English Grammar in Steps.

Richmond Publishing. 1996.

Puchta & Stranks. English in Mind 3A. Cambridge University Press. 2007.