Let’s get right into our grammar for today where we're talking about this big question in the Present Perfect –
«HAVE you ever...?»
Pretty much you just want to find out whether someone has done something in their life, but this one is structured using the Past Perfect. If I want to know whether any of you have maybe tried sushi in your lives, how would I ask that question? Yeah,
«HAVE you ever EATEN sushi before?»
So, this is a key word here – the HAVE. You'll often see HAVE if it's Present Perfect, which we're only focusing on right now. This will often come before the Past Participle. If we want to give a positive answer, we use Present Perfect without the word «ever». If we want to give a negative answer, we use the negative form of Present Perfect or the positive form of Present Perfect with word «never».
«Yes, I HAVE EATEN sushi»
«No, I HAVEN’T EATEN sushi»
«No, I HAVE never EATEN sushi»
That means you've done it at least once in your life, right? Sometime in the past. We don't know exactly when, but you've done it at least once.
We'll cover a bit of the grammar here. So, let's see. The structure, I'll cover it very briefly. I won't go into too much, though. You'll have this here as a reference if you need, right?
STRUCTURE:
Question: HAVE/HAS + subject + past participle?
Positive: Subject + HAVE/HAS + past participle.
Negative: Subject + HAVE/HAS + not + past participle.
So, the key here is the HAVE or HAS, followed by a past participle. So, it really depends on who your subject is, is what determines whether you use the HAVE or the HAS. If the subject can be a HE, SHE, or IT, it's a HAS, right? If it can be an I, a YOU, it's a HAVE. So, the reason we call this Present Perfect is because it's present, right? HAVE and HAS are present forms of the verb TO HAVE. The participle is what makes it perfect. So, Present, Perfect.
And for this question, or for this structure, it changes very briefly for the question, right? You'll see the have or has at the beginning. So, if we're using the question «HAVE YOU EVER?», we use the form HAVE, right? So, that's briefly the structure.
If we are talking about somebody else, for example, maybe Claire and I are having a conversation, and we're wondering about Simon, right? We're trying to figure out some information about him. Maybe he's gone. He's not in the room anymore. So, that's a situation where I'm going: «Ah, has Simon ever snuck out of class?» or something like that, right?
Again, just «HAS anyone DONE something in their life?» That's really all this question is getting at. We don't need a specific time necessarily. We don't need to know when. We are just wanting to know whether it's been done at least once. So, if I'm asking somebody «HAVE you ever TRIED sushi?» It could be I don't really care if it's when you were five or if it's when you were 50. I just want to know if it's happened sometime in your life. So, that's really all this question is about, is just getting to know a little bit more about somebody. Maybe when you meet someone for the first time, you might ask a question like this, right? «HAVE you ever TRIED A certain food?» «HAVE you ever BEEN TO a certain place? GONE TO a certain place?»
Examples:
HAVE BEEN versus HAVE GONE
While they both talk about journeys or visits to places, BEEN talks about something that has been completed, GONE talks about something that has not been completed. So, that's the difference here.
Use the verb TO BE, and going abroad. There's a way I could ask that using the
– «CLAIRE, HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ABROAD?»
– «YES, I HAVE BEEN ABROAD»
When she tells us that, we don't know exactly when she went, but we know that at least once in her life she's been abroad.
LET’S TALK ABOUT OUR PAST PARTICIPLE HERE…
LET’S TALK ABOUT THIRD FORMS OF VERBS
So, looking at all these verbs, do you see any true patterns in here? Anything that you're like: «Oh, that might be a rule there that I can use to remember these»? Ultimately, with verbs, there's a lot of patterns. There's not really a good way to look at a verb and say: «Oh yeah, this is definitely something». There’re not really any specific rules. There’re some common endings with some of them. But for the past participles, for the third form, unfortunately, it's just kind of memorizing them. So, that is the bad news that I have to share with you is this is just a matter of memorizing things.
You could print out a chart of some very common verbs with all three forms, and you could post it on your wall. So, you could have it in your room, because it’s helpful to have those to look at for a few.
Most of our work leading up to the mid-test will be about the past participles. As we talked about Present Perfect and Present Perfect Continuous.