tenses for secret agents

Secret Knowledge

Tenses for awesome

people

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Secret Knowledge

Brief Info about English tenses:

English tenses are not scary, and they are very easy to understand and use if you

have the secret knowledge

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Secret Knowledge

• They have the same tenses as in your language:

• Present

• Past

• Future

• BUT!

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Secret Knowledge

unlike your language, there are also some aspects of these tenses:

• Indefinite (or simple)

• Continuous

• Perfect

• Perfect Continuous

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And each tense has these aspects:

Present - Indefinite/ Continuous/ Perfect

Perfect Continuous

Past – Indefinite/ Continuous/ Perfect/

Perfect Continuous

Future – Indefinite/ Continuous/ Perfect

Perfect Continuous

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Secret Knowledge

Indefinite: what you know:

- You know when it happens, or happened, or will happen

- Or how often it happens or happened, or will happen

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Secret KnowledgeExamples:

• Nikola eats chocolate every day

what you know: when it happens: in present, and how often it happens: every day

(only smart and lucky people

eat chocolate every day!)

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More examples:

• Nikola ate chocolate yesterday.

What you know: when it happened -

yesterday

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and I will eat chocolate tomorrow!

what you know: when it will happen: tomorrow

(yeah, and it will be a HUGE bar of chocolate!)

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Secret Knowledge

Continuous: what you know:

- You know when exactly it is/was/ will be taking place and it is/was/will be still taking place – continues (or continued/

will continue)

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Secret KnowledgeExamples:

• Nikola is eating chocolate now, don’t disturb him!

What you know: when exactly it’s happening: it’s happening in present,

and it continues

It’s happening NOW, at this very

moment:

do you hear him chewing it?

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More examples:

• Ana was eating chocolate, when Nikola came back home from school (and she was eating HIS chocolate!)

• What you know: when exactly it was taking place, and it was still taking place when Nikola was home – so he was there,

looking at Ana, while she was

eating his chocolate…how goshy gosh is that?

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• More examples:

• And I will be eating chocolate at 7 o’clock tomorrow!

• What you know: when exactly it will be taking place and it will still be taking place! It’s not something I’ll

quickly do and forget, nah,

I’ll be eeeeaaaatiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

chocolate

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Secret Knowledge

Perfect: what you know:

- That it happens/happened/ will happen before something else happens/happened/will happen, or by a certain time

(BUT: you can never say when or

when exactly it happened

without ‘this something’ (another

action) or ‘by which time’ (certain time)

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Secret Knowledge

• Examples:

• Nikola has already eaten all his chocolate

• What you know: you don’t know when Nikola did that, but you know that by now Nikola has eaten it and

now there’s NO chocolate left:

he HAS EATEN it!

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Secret Knowledge

Examples:

• Ana had eaten all the chocolate before Nikola came back home.

What you know: when Nikola came home there was NO chocolate left as Ana

HAD EATEN it all!

(yeah, girls can be so evil at

times)

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Secret Knowledge

Perfect Continuous: what you know:

- For how long it continues

/continued/will continue before or by a certain time

(or since what time, but anyway, you

can count how long…just use your

math skills)

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Secret KnowledgeExamples:

• Nikola has been eating chocolate for 25 minutes already.

What you know: how long Nikola has been doing it and is still doing

Look at his happy face,

he HAS BEEN EATING chocolate

for 25 minutes and is still eating it!

(happy happy, joy joy!)

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More examples:

• Ana had been eating chocolate for 30 minutes when Nikola came back home from school.

What you know: how long she had

been doing that and

she was still doing by the time

Nikola came back home…

for 30 minutes!!

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EASY!

Now let’s practise with a new secret word: to chocolate

To chocolate = to eat chocolate and enjoy it

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See you soon!