Including the present perfect tense and the past perfect tense, and why we choose them over the simple past tense.
Thank you so much!
2007-12-30 00:21:12 · 6 answers · asked by lilacchild 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
I know what you mean, twazl634 but this eight-year-old would very much like to learn it and I would love to teach him too.
Argh...perfect tense: the bane of English teaching! Just kidding :)
2007-12-30 00:33:36 · update #1
Present perfect.
I am 30 years old today. (That will never happen again)
Past perfect.
I was born 30 years ago.
S/he died yesterday.
(That will never happen again)
I had a surprise party for my birthday.
That is the past, but can occur again.
2007-12-30 00:38:48 · answer #1 · answered by ed 7 · 1⤊ 3⤋
It would be a complete waste of time to try to explain tense usage to a kid of eight - even many adults find grammar explanations a confusing turn-off. (Look at some of the off-the-wall answers your question has elicited) Unless you are a qualified English language teacher, don't even attempt it. And if you WERE a qualified EFL teacher you'd know it would be a pointless undertaking. Kids of this age think in concrete terms and abstractions like grammar will mean nothing to them.
2007-12-30 02:41:18 · answer #2 · answered by vilgessuola 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Teaching Grammar to a non English speaker requires the help of a native English speaker, to give examples in their native language. Otherwise just explaining "have+participle or had+participle" will not be understood by the student easily.
2007-12-30 00:46:21 · answer #3 · answered by Brahmanyan 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
the perfect tenses mainly show something which happened in the past when what happened is still important in the present.
there is no cake. she has eaten it.
there was no cake. she had eaten it.
in both these sentence pairs it matters that there is no cake. (perhaps the speaker likes cake).
if the speaker didn't care either way a simple past tense would do.
there is no glue. she ate it.
there was no glue. she ate it.
(the speaker doesn't need glue).
2007-12-30 02:08:26 · answer #4 · answered by synopsis 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
If his native language is German, French, Spanish, Italian and loads of others, you could draw parallels with his own language. If he's Chinese or some other exotic nationality, I can't help you.
2007-12-30 01:58:30 · answer #5 · answered by JJ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
an 8 year old......are you serious????? he doesnt need to learn that yet....he has the rest of his life to worry about learning things
2007-12-30 00:29:33 · answer #6 · answered by twazl634 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋