Count column two
Both listeners’ pages. Count column two on each and write the numbers at the top. Then note which move they sat in — announcement, detail, or consequence.
Almost everybody clusters in one of the three. Which one is personal; that it is one of them is universal.
Six pairs. Match each correct sentence to the version it is usually produced as.
Two minutes of a real transcript
Transcribed exactly, errors and all
The obvious one is my job. I work in the same company since 2016 and it changed me a lot. I have started there as an assistant and now I manage four people.
The second is my sister moving to Canada. She went in 2019 and I didn’t see her since three years. We speak every week but is not the same.
And the third, I am not sure. I never lived alone before this year, and I am learning things about myself since January that I don’t especially like.
Four questions about the transcript. Every sentence in it is grammatical.
1. I work in the same company since 2016. What is wrong?
2. I have started there as an assistant. What is wrong?
3. Those two errors are opposites. What does that tell you?
4. I didn’t see her since three years. How many errors?
Four families, one question
An honest finding. Every student in this room can pass a written exercise on this contrast. Almost every student in this room broke it out loud last lesson, in both directions.
That is not forgetting the rule. It is that Portuguese supplies a tense automatically while you are thinking about content, and the tense it supplies is the simple. The rule has to be asked, and asking takes attention you are spending elsewhere.
The fix is not a better rule. It is learning the anchors as fixed chunks, so for-ten-years and since-2016 arrive with the auxiliary already attached.
The four families
| Family | Looks like | The chunk to learn |
|---|---|---|
| Simple where the period reaches now | I have worked here since… · I have lived here for… | |
| Perfect next to a finished time | A date in the clause means the simple. No exceptions | |
since in front of a length | for three years · since 2019 | |
| Simple for a life-long span | I have never been to… | |
| Present for a period reaching now | I have been learning… since… | |
been against gone | She has been to Paris twice — she came back |
The transcript from the input, repaired. One to four words per gap.
The obvious one is my job. I in the same company since 2016 and it me a lot. I there as an assistant and now I manage four people. The second is my sister moving to Canada. She in 2019 and I her for three years. We speak every week but it is not the same. And the third — I alone before this year, and I things about myself since January that I do not especially like.
Eight sentences, at least one from each family. Fix each, and name the family.
1. I study English since I was fourteen.
2. She has qualified in 2014.
3. We have been married since eleven years.
4. I never ate anything like it.
5. He is working here since Easter.
6. They have gone to Greece three times.
7. Did you ever break a bone?
8. I have finished the report an hour ago.
Until the anchor brings the auxiliary with it
Ten sentences from four-minute turns. Eight have one error; two are already correct.
1. I live in Braga for six years now.
2. I met her at university and we have been friends ever since.
3. I have left that job in March.
4. She didn’t call me since Tuesday.
5. Have you seen the new place last night?
6. I am waiting for this letter since April.
7. My parents have been to Italy twice and they are going again in June.
8. I never had a job I liked until this one.
9. We have moved house three times since the baby was born.
10. How long are you working here?
Four sentences have been removed. Put each back in the gap where its tense fits.
People ask whether I have got used to living alone. [1] The honest answer is that some weeks I have and some weeks I have not.
I moved into this flat in February. [2] For the first month I left the radio on constantly, which I have never admitted to anybody.
It has got easier since about May. [3] I have stopped counting the days until somebody visits, which was a thing I genuinely used to do.
What I have not got used to is cooking for one. [4] I still make enough for three and I have eaten the same thing for four days running more times than I want to say.
One to four words per gap. Ask the question every time: can I say when, and is that when finished?
My grandmother in the same house since 1961. She there the year my mother , and she a single night anywhere else since my grandfather in 2009. I to persuade her to move for about four years now. She the same thing every time: this is where everything happened.
Be the editor
Task card · Pairs · Editing then speaking
Your partner’s column two from Lesson 5 — the sentences where the tense broke. You are their editor.
Take four of them, repair them out loud, and name the family each one belongs to.
- Name the family before you give the correction.
- For each one, say the question out loud: can you say when, and is that when finished?
- At least one of your four must be an error in the opposite direction — a perfect where a simple belongs.
- Then have your partner say the repaired sentence back twice, at speed.
Then, thirty seconds each. Say three true sentences about your own life: one with for, one with since, one with a year in it. Your partner says which tense each one required before you say it.
Both directions
Four sentences. Two go one way, two the other. Fix each and say which.
1. I know him since school.
2. I have spoken to her yesterday.
3. She works there for eight months now.
4. They have arrived last Thursday.
The anchor brings the tense
Three questions.
1. Why does this error survive when you can pass a written exercise on it?
2. Which is right?
3. They have gone to Greece three times. What does it say?
Before next lesson. Write your three experiences out in full and underline every verb. Beside each, write F if there is a finished time in that clause and O if the period is open.
Bring it on paper. Next lesson you cut it to 200 words, and every F and O has to match its tense.