Online Class Notes (Joe)

We talked about the reasons you like Shanghai, your job, your friends and family. While talking, I was a little confused about where you worked. This was due to the incorrect use of the present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses, which made me confused.

Continue to focus on using the present perfect continuous tense (e.g. I have been living) and present perfect tense (e.g. I have lived). These tense are very important to convey in a clear meaning and avoid misunderstanding.

Vocabulary

rusty – adj – the brown stuff on old metal / the condition of a skill that has not been used in a long time.
e.g. My Chinese is rusty

a slip of the tongue – a mistake that you make when speaking when you know how to say it the right way.
e.g. Oh, I said ‘Lorel’. That was a slip of the tongue. I meant to say ‘Loreal’.

Grammar

I don’t like to coding 
I don’t like coding – OK
I can’t stand coding – good

I have a lot friends in Shanghai
I have a lot of friends in Shanghai – OK
I have tons of friends in Shanghai – great

I have + verb 3 – (e.g. I have eaten dinner today)
This is known as the present perfect tense. It is usually used to talk about things that you have finished doing (finished eating) during a period of unfinished time (today).

I have been + verb 4 – (e.g. I have been eating dinner)
This is known as the present perfect continuous tense. It is usually used to talk about things that you have not finished doing (not finished eating) but has happened recently.