Learn English with Alex - Present Perfect? Past Simple? Avoid These 6 English Mistakes

“I *saw* her...” or “I *have seen* her...”? Do you know when to use each form? If not, that’s okay! In this useful English grammar lesson about the *present perfect* tense, I point out six common mistakes that learners make—and I explain how to fix them. Watch the lesson to finally feel confident using the present perfect in real English conversations! https://www.engvid.com/6-present-perfect-mistakes/ Visit my website for ebooks and other resources: https://EnglishAlex.com Learn more about the present perfect and past simple tenses: https://youtu.be/YeAG_gQxDIg https://youtu.be/ebe1ExzZZNk In this lesson: 0:00 Present Perfect or Past Simple? 0:50 Use the past simple with specific past times 1:49 Present perfect for duration from the past until now 2:48 "For" or "since"? 3:54 Past simple for completed actions 5:17 Present perfect needs a past participle 6:12 Stative verbs not usually used with continuous tenses 7:24 Conclusion Transcript: I haven't seen you for a long time or I haven't seen you since a long time. Hmm. Let's find out. Hey, everyone. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking. And in today's video, we are going to make sure that you know how to use the present perfect in English and that you avoid some of the most common mistakes. We will talk about the present perfect versus the past simple, since this is one of the most common confusions that people have with this tense. And we'll look at some other common mistakes that people make. In short, today, I want to help you perfect the present perfect. Ready? Let's go. The first common mistake people make with the present perfect is that they think they can still use past time words with the present perfect. This is not usually the case. For example, I have seen him yesterday. Yesterday is a specific time that is finished in the past. You can't use the present perfect with phrases and words like "yesterday", "at three o'clock", "last week", "last month", "on Monday", for example, if you are talking about a past finished Monday. For specific past times that are finished, we use the past simple. So, the correct sentence is "I saw him yesterday." Specific past time, past simple. Simple? Good. The next mistake that I often hear from English learners is "We are together since 2015." Now, here, we are talking about a duration from the past until now. The correct form here is "We have been together since 2015" because we use the present perfect when we want to talk about duration that connects the past until now. So, here, we see "since 2015", "since 2015", the correct sentence. "We have been together since 2015." Let me ask you, "How long have you studied English?" You can tell me that in the comments. Here, we have "since" and there is another word that is sometimes confused with "since" and that word is "for", not the number four, the word "for". So, we use "for" when we want to talk about durations. For example, for one hour, for six days, for nine minutes, for one year. We use "since" with starting periods or the last time that something happened. So, in this example, "We have lived here since two years." The correct way to say this with the present perfect is "We have lived here for two years." Now, you can say, like, "since", for example, 2024, you know, as an example. So, you could say a past time period, like when something started or the last time something happened with "since", but if you mention the time, two days, six hours, nine months, just use "for". And this is number three, mistake number three. Let's continue with mistake number four. This mistake is similar to mistake number one because it deals with a specific past time. Now, as you know, we use a specific past time with the past simple. So, for example, "I have lived in Cairo in 2010." Oh, in 2010, that's a finished time. I don't live in Cairo now. I'm not talking about the duration of time that I lived in Cairo until now. So, if it's finished and you are not in Cairo anymore, "I lived in Cairo in 2010." Now, I understand why people make this mistake. You can use the present perfect to talk about your life experiences. So, people think "life experience", "I lived in Cairo", "I have lived in Cairo". Yes, okay, you can say "I have lived in Cairo in my life" or "before", "now". That's okay. But if you mention the specific past time, like "in 2010", you can't say this, okay? You have to say "I lived in Cairo in 2010". Good? Awesome. Let's go. Let's look at this example right away. "She has saw that movie before." Ah, we have "before". This is a good start. We can use the word "before" with the present perfect because it connects the past to the present. However, "saw"... No, no, no, my friends. We must use a past participle with the present perfect. […]