Now that you're studying English at a high level, you need to be able to talk about the language itself.
One of the biggest areas of confusion for students is the difference between the past tense and the present perfect.
The past tense is indicated by using the past tense marker represented here by v sub d.
Here are some examples of regular verbs and their past tense forms.
So as you can see for regular verbs, the past tense form is indicated by the addition of an e e d at the end of the verb.
However, some of the most common verbs in English are irregular. So So it is important to learn them.
Here are some examples.
Altogether there are over 200 regular verbs in normal use.
Many people think that the past tense form only indicates past time.
However, that is only one of the possible meanings.
The past tense form is also used to express something that is unlikely or imaginary from the speaker's point of view.
Here's an example. He wishes he had a car.
The fact is that he doesn't have a car. So the use of head indicates that it isn't real. It's imaginary.
If he had a car, he could drive us to school.
Again, he doesn't have a car, so he can't drive us to school.
This condition expresses something that isn't a fact.
It's a counter factual condition. Which means it goes against what we know or believe.
These two sentences.
Both sentences are correct, but there is a difference in meaning.
In the Top sentence, the condition that she waits is more likely from the speaker's point of view.
In the bottom sentence, the speaker thinks it's less likely that she is going to wait.
He wishes he had a car, but he doesn't have enough money to buy one.
There was a big sale last week, so we all went shopping.
If that flight left a few minutes later, we could take the next shuttle bus.
