Take the Present Perfect Progressive challenge!

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My name is Emma and in today's video we are going to talk about grammar, and specifically

we are going to talk about the present perfect progressive, and this video is a bit special

because in this video I am going to challenge you to use the present perfect progressive

in a sentence or in a conversation this week.

Okay? So, maybe you've heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge, well, this isn't that.

This is the: "Present Perfect Progressive Challenge".

And I hope you do this.

So, here's the challenge:

Use present perfect progressive tense in one conversation this week.

So, in order to do this, first I'm going to teach you: What is the present perfect progressive?

We can also call it the present perfect continuous, you might know it by that name.

So I'm going to talk about what it is, why we use it.

I'm going to teach you about the form of it, so: How does it look?

And then we're going to practice it and we're going to talk about how we can actually use

this in a conversation.

Because I know what happens with many students, they go to class or, you know, they're studying

online and they find these great grammar worksheets or resources, and they do them at home and

it's great on paper, but then when they're actually in a conversation they get scared

about making a mistake or they can't remember the grammar, and so they don't use it.

So this video is more practical because I want you to use this grammar.

Okay, so let's look at some examples of the present perfect continuous or present perfect progressive.

That's going to get tiring to say.

It's such a long grammatical term, so if I make a mistake, you know, when I'm saying

the word, don't mind that.

Okay, so I have some examples here.

My first one: "I have"-so this is part of the form-"been working at my company for 5 years".

So, just take a moment to think about that.

"I have been working at my company for 5 years."

Now, let's look at another example.

We're going to compare some examples, and then think about what they all mean.

"He has been dating my friend for 2 months.

He has been dating my friend for 2 months."

Let's look at a third example: "We have been studying English forever."

[Laughs] Sometimes it might feel that way, but you know, bear with me.

"We have been studying English forever."

Okay, so what do these sentences have in common?

Well, first of all you probably realize these are all present perfect progressive sentences,

and they have a lot of things in common.

The main thing that we're using the present perfect progressive for is we're talking about

how long, so how long something is happening.

Okay? So we're talking about the duration of time, how long something happens for.

So you'll notice: "I have been working at my company for 5 years."

Five years is an amount of time.

"He has been dating my friend for 2 months."

Two months is a period of time.

"We have been studying English forever."

Forever is a very long period of time.

Okay? So we're talking about periods of time when we're talking about the present perfect progressive,

and we're really answering the question: "How long?" or "How much time?"

So now let's talk a little bit more about the meaning and the form.

Okay, so we've looked at some examples of the present perfect progressive, and let's

think a little bit more about the meaning.

I've drawn here a timeline.

So this is now, today, right now; this is the future; and this is the past.

So when we're talking about the...

Well, actually any grammar, what can be really helpful is looking at timelines, they can

really help you understand, you know, what these different tenses mean.

So let's look at our timeline and what the present perfect progressive tense would look

like on the timeline.

So, I have here my first example: "I have been working at my company for 5 years."

This means that five years ago, so let's go to the past-one, two, three, four, five-

I started working, so this is the beginning, and this action continued and continued and

continued to right now, so I'm still doing it.

So, when we're talking about this tense we're talking about something that began in the

past, and kept happening, you know, I kept working, working, working, and it has continued

to now, so it hasn't stopped.

It's an action that started before, kept happening, and now we're in the present and I'm still

doing it, so there's been no end.

So: "I have been working at my company for 5 years."

You can imagine, you know, maybe you know somebody who has a boyfriend or a girlfriend,

think about dating.

You know, there's two famous actors, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, they're older actors.

I think they've been dating for 30 years.

I could be wrong, but you could use the present perfect progressive to describe their relationship.

How long have Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell been dating for?

Okay? And I could be very wrong with this.

My trivia might be a bit off, but Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have been dating for over

30 years, so that means that if this is 30 years ago, they started dating here and they

kept dating, and they're still dating today.

So this is how we use the present perfect progressive.

We're really focused on the time period, and we're talking about something that started

in the past and continued to now.

So, we've talked about the meaning, and we'll do some practice in a moment, but before we

begin practicing, I want you to think about the form, or: How does the present perfect

progressive look?

So, I have here our subjects.

We can have "I" if I'm talking about myself, I can talk about "You", I can talk about "We",

or I can talk about "They", maybe I'm talking about friends, "They".

And when I'm using: "You", "We", "They", "I", or any of these types of subjects, the next

thing that comes for this tense is the word "have".

"I have", "You have", "We have", "They have".

And then we have the word "been".

Okay? So: "You have been", "We have been", "They have been", "I have been",

and then here we

have our action word or our verb, and you'll notice it ends in "ing".

So we can put any verb here.

"You have been studying English for a long time.",

"We have been watching YouTube for 10 hours."

I don't know, I hope not.

That's a long time to watch YouTube, but: "They have been working hard for days."

So this is, you know...

Or, yeah, if we're thinking about dating:

"Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, they have been dating for 30 years."

So I want you to start thinking about ways you can use this, maybe in your own life.

Now, when we're talking about: "He", "She", or "It", this is when it gets a little bit

more difficult.

We're not going to use "have" anymore, we're going to use "has".

"He has", "She has", "It has".

"She has been dating her boyfriend for 5 years.",

"He has been working at his company for 20 years.",

"It has been raining for weeks."

Okay? And, again, the focus is on the amount of time, that's why we're using this, we want

to know: How long?

So now we're going to learn how to use this tense, and again, you know, you're going to

have to practice this.

It's good to even take out a piece of paper right now, and what you can do is you can

try to add different verbs here.

Okay? Just to practice, get used to using this, because we're going to use it in conversation

But before that, I'm going to teach you how to use this in the question form.

Okay, so now we've looked at a little bit about the form when we're saying the present

perfect progressive in a sentence.

What about if we want to ask somebody a question in the present perfect progressive, how would

Well, usually the question starts off with the words: "How long", because what we're

interested in is the period of time.

So: "How long" and then we will have the word either "have" or "has", depending on what

our subject is.

So, for example, if my subject...

If I'm talking about myself, I use: "I", "you", "they", "we", then we would use "have"; or

if I'm talking about "he", "she", or "it", I would use "has".

So: "How long have I", "How long has he", "How long as she", "How long has it", okay?

And then after that we have the word "been", just like before: "been", our verb and "ing".

So let's take a moment to make up some sentences together.

"How long have you been watching this video?",

"How long have you been studying English?",

"How long have you been living in your apartment or your house?"

So just some examples.

And then if we wanted to use "he", "she", or "it":

"How long has it been snowing?",

"How long has it been raining?", "How long has he been reading his book?"

Okay? So you can see how we use this question in conversation.

So let's do some practice together, and then I'll talk a little bit more about our challenge.

So I have, here, part of our question.

It starts off with:

"How _______ _______ you been studying English?"

There's a missing word and a missing word: "...you been studying English"?

So how can we make this into a proper question?

Well, first we need the word "long": "How long".

And should this be "have" or "has"?

Well, if we look we see the word "you", "you", okay, so we know it has to be "have":

"How long have you been studying English?"

And what would our answer be?

So I want you to think about yourself.

How long have you been studying English?"

"I have _______ study___ for _______."

So what do we need here?

been", "I have been study",

"studying", "ing" is very important.

"I have been studying English for", and you can fill in the blank.

How long have you been studying English?

Maybe two months, maybe 10 years, maybe 20 years.

I'll tell you about myself.

Well, I'm not going to put a number because I don't know...

I don't want you to know my age, but I'll say this: I have been studying English for

my whole life, and I continue to study English.

I learn new words all the time in English.

I have been studying for many, many years.

How... Okay, so let's do another one: "How long have you been working at _______?"

Okay? Are you a student?

Do you have a job?

Do you work somewhere?

If you work somewhere or, you know, maybe you know somebody who has a job, you can ask them:

"How long have you been working at your company", "at your firm",

at, you know, the hotel, wherever your friend or where you yourself might work.

And the answer would be: "I _______ been working at _______ for."

What could we put here?

"I have been working at"

and you can say the name of your company: "for five years",

"for 10 years", "for two months", and maybe you're not working.

You can say: "I have been studying at school" or "at university" or "at college",

"I have been studying at my high school for four years."

So you can change "working" to "studying" if you want as well.

Okay, so back to the challenge now.

We've done some practice with the present perfect progressive, so how are you going

to use this in a conversation this week?

So maybe you might want to follow this and ask somebody about their job.

How long have you been working at such-and-such place?

Maybe you want to ask somebody about their relationship:

"How long have you been dating, you know, your girlfriend or your boyfriend?"

Maybe you want to ask someone about their hobbies or something they're interested in.

You know, some people watch Netflix or television shows and they spend a lot of time watching,

so you might want to ask them, you know, if you have a friend who loves Game of Thrones,

for example, you might ask them: "How long have you been watching Game of Thrones today?"

And maybe they'll say: "11 hours."

"I have been watching Game of Thrones for, you know, 11 hours today."

Or, you know, you can ask them about a book.

Maybe they're reading a very thick book.

-"How long have you been reading that book for?"

-"I have been reading that book for two years now.

It's a very long book."

So, think about relationships, dating, think about work, think about studying.

You know, maybe they're studying another language.

Think about their hobbies, their activities.

And remember: What you really want to find out is the length of time or the time period

they've been doing something for.

So, I hope you do this present perfect progressive challenge.

I think it's really good if you take the grammar you're learning here and you use it in a conversation,

that's what we want.

So, to practice this more you can come visit our website at www.engvid.com,

and there you can take our quiz to make sure that, you know,

you understand the form and the meaning of this.

You know, this might be an idea to do before you use this in conversation.

And if you don't have anyone to practice with, try it with a mirror. Okay?

Like, you know, if you have friends who speak English or something like that, that's great,

but if not that's okay.

You can even write present progressive or present perfect progressive in our comments.

You know, I'm sure other students will also be using our comment board to write these

types of sentences, so that's a great way to get some practice as well.

I also invite you to come check out...

Or to subscribe to my channel.

I have a lot of other resources there on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and all sorts of

other topics related to English, so I highly recommend it.

Thank you for watching, and until next time, take care.