How to Skyrocket Your English Grammar Skills: Don't Miss the Verb Tense Exercise!
Struggling to get English tenses right? Fed up with boring grammar drills? Adept English has cracked the code! Hilary’s latest podcast lesson doesn’t just teach you English—it transforms you into a fluent speaker. 👊
Why This Lesson Will Rock Your English World:
- Real-World Practice: Get hands-on with examples pulled straight from daily life. No fluff. 🌍
- Interactive Quizzes: Put your skills to the test, right as you learn. You speak, you engage, you get fluent. 🎤
- Daily Life Scenarios: Master tenses as Hilary talks about her day. Imagine reliving your day in another tense—it's that easy! 📅
- Easy-to-Follow: No jargon. Just clear, simple language. Perfect for beginners and intermediate learners. 🤓
- Immediate Application: Don't just listen—speak! Practice on the go and wire your brain for English fluency. 🗣
✔Lesson transcript: https://adeptenglish.com/lessons/grammar-english-real-world-verb-tense-exercises/
Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides.
⭐ Rita Mae Brown
Eager to achieve English fluency but find verb tenses to be your Achilles' heel? Imagine breaking down this daunting wall with an English lesson that makes the complex simple. Adept English has tailored a lesson that transforms everyday language into a masterclass on verb tenses.
You won't just learn; you'll practice in real-time and walk away with actionable tips that your brain will thank you for. Curious? Dive in to discover how to manipulate English sentences like a pro and fast-track your path to fluency.
Change your language and you change your thoughts.
⭐ Karl Albrecht
Learn the ins and outs of verb tenses. Get the mechanics down. Stop thinking and start speaking English effortlessly! 🚀 Your journey to unshakable English fluency starts here. Click, listen, and get fluent! 🔥
More About This Lesson
Struggle with English verb tenses? Adept English is here to change that for you. Our lesson helps you break through this big challenge. We give you a fun and active way to learn English. The lesson covers everything from the basics to real-world practice. You get more than just listening; you get to speak and practice too.
Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
⭐ Oliver Wendell Holmes
Things you will learn listening to this English grammar lesson, you will discover:
- Verb Tense Exercises: Practical focus on manipulating verb tenses, a challenging aspect of English.
- Real-world Examples: The lesson includes everyday situations for better understanding.
- Mechanics of Language: Explains how to change sentence structure when altering the subject or the verb.
- Interactive Quizzes: Podcasts include quizzes for testing one's understanding.
- Encouragement to Speak: Invites listeners to pause and practice speaking.
- Narrow Topic Focus: Discusses benefits of staying with a familiar vocabulary range for fluency.
- Personal Stories: Uses daily life stories for more relatable lessons.
- Variety in Sentence Structure: Demonstrates how a sentence can change based on tense.
Benefits of our listen & learn approach to learning
- Real Learning: This isn't textbook learning. You use real-world examples and practice with them.
- Easy and Fun: With interactive features like quizzes, you won't get bored.
- Safe Space: You get to practice without fear of mistakes.
- From Learning to Using: You don't just learn English; you learn how to use it in real life.
Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.
⭐ Flora Lewis
Interactive Learning: Don't just listen—participate! This lesson includes quizzes and pause-and-practice moments for hands-on learning.
- Tackle verb tenses, a big roadblock to fluency.
- Real-world examples make learning more useful.
- You can pause and practice speaking.
- You learn not just what to say, but how to say it.
Speak More Naturally: Use daily life examples to gain comfort and skill, making you speak English like a local.
- Don't Understand Verb Tenses? We make them simple with real examples.
- Scared to Speak? You get a safe space to try and make mistakes.
- Can't Use What You Learn? Our real-world examples bridge the gap.
- Bored Easily? Interactive and fun parts keep you awake and thinking.
Ready to speak English more naturally? To truly get good at English, you need more than just listening. You need speaking and doing. Subscribe to the Adept English podcast now and start your journey to English fluency.
Questions You Might Have...
Navigating the intricate world of English verb tenses is like being a skilled pilot in the cockpit of a supersonic jet. Today's lesson lets you master the levers and buttons—those tricky tenses—that propel you toward fluency. With real-world scenarios as your runway and interactive quizzes as your co-pilot, you're not just learning; you're soaring! Ready for take off? Hit play and engage with English in a way that turns the complex into second nature. Take the wheel and fly toward fluency.
- What is the main goal of this English lesson? The lesson aims to boost your English fluency by mastering the mechanics of English verb tenses. You'll engage in interactive exercises that let you practice converting tenses while maintaining the same meaning and vocabulary. This approach aligns perfectly with Adept English's listen & learn system.
- How does this lesson help in speaking British English fluently? This lesson hones in on verb tenses, a critical aspect for fluency in any language but particularly essential in British English. By incorporating real-world examples and exercises, the lesson enables you to internalize these concepts, aiding in your journey towards fluency in British English.
- How is this lesson interactive? The lesson invites you to pause the podcast and practice manipulating tenses. You're encouraged to apply what you've learned, turning it into a practical skill. Moreover, Adept English aims to include more quizzes, making future lessons even more interactive based on audience feedback.
- How does the lesson incorporate real-world examples? The instructor, Hilary, uses everyday activities such as going shopping or visiting a garden centre as examples. These relatable scenarios make it easier for you to grasp how verb tenses function in real-world conversations, helping you to communicate more effectively in English.
- How can I get more tips on language learning from Adept English? Don't miss out on Adept English's free course, "The Seven Rules of Adept English." It offers valuable insights into why some people never become fluent and reveals the 'secrets' that can lead to fluency. Sign up on the Adept English website to empower the English-speaking part of your brain!
Most Unusual Words:
- Fluency: The ability to speak or write a language easily and well.
- Crack: In this context, it means to solve or figure out something.
- Quiz: A short test or game to check your knowledge.
- Alzheimer's: A brain disease that affects memory, thinking, and behaviour.
- Mechanics: Here, it refers to the basic rules and structure of the English language.
- Manipulate: To handle or control something skilfully.
- Tenses: Forms of a verb that show the time, duration, or completion of an action.
- Convey: To communicate or express something.
- Vocabulary: The set of words you know or use in a language.
- Wire: In this context, it means to train your brain to think a certain way.
Most Frequently Used Words:
| Word | Count |
|---|---|
| About | 22 |
| Talking | 16 |
| Might | 15 |
| Washing | 12 |
| English | 11 |
| Going | 11 |
| Sound | 10 |
| Language | 8 |
| Pause | 7 |
| Podcast | 6 |
Listen To The Audio Lesson Now
Transcript: Crack Verb Tenses For Fluent English-Quick Challenge
Let’s focus on something that’s critical to English Language Fluency
Hi there. Today let’s focus on a part of English language learning, which is critical to fluency. This aspect of language learning is crucial, very important whatever language you learn - but if you want to be fluent in English, you need to crack this one! That means ‘you need to learn to do it’! So benefits of this podcast? It gives you practice at verb tenses, one of the most challenging aspects of English. It gives you real-world examples and invites you to pause and practise speaking - you can actually apply your learning. And the lesson uses straightforward examples from daily life, making it easier to understand and then you can focus on the exercise!
Hello, I’m Hilary, and you’re listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works.
Interesting Results of our Spotify Polls
And by the way, we asked you in a recent Spotify poll whether you thought there would be a cure for Alzheimer’s in the next 10 years. That was on the back of a news podcast, where I reported some progress. And the vote on that was 44% of you thought ‘Highly likely’, 45% of you thought ‘Maybe’ and only 10% of you felt it was ‘Unlikely’ that a cure would be found for Alzheimer’s in the next 10 years. You sound quite hopeful on that one, like I am! And we also asked ‘Do you want more quizzes in the Adept English podcast?’ Guess what? 79% of you said ‘Yes’. So this podcast is more interactive - it will test your English and it wants you to speak too!
And we’ve ‘taken note’ - more quizzes!
Don’t forget our ‘Seven Rules of Adept English Course’ if you want the secrets of language learning
And if you want advice and tips on language learning - with reference to English language learning, of course, don’t forget to sign up for our free course, The Seven Rules of Adept English. This course explains what goes wrong with language learning, why some people don’t ever become fluent - and it also explains why and how some people do become fluent. What do the people who become fluent actually do differently? These ‘secrets’ are all in our Seven Rules course, so go to adeptenglish.com and sign up straight away, if you’ve never done this course. You’ll be glad you did and your English language part of your brain will thank you!
Boost Your Learning With Adept English
Learning to handle ‘the mechanics of the language’
The biggest thing to help your English fluency is of course listening and understanding. I tell you this every week in the podcast! But also something which really helps your English fluency - staying with a narrow range of vocabulary or narrow topic, which you understand, so that you can focus just on ‘the mechanics of the language’. What I mean by ‘mechanics’, MECHANICS - how sentences need to change when you alter something.
An example of this would be how a sentence changes if you turn it into a question. ‘I’m going shopping’ might become ‘When shall I go shopping?’ or ‘When am I going shopping?’ or ‘Where shall I shop?’ or simply ‘Am I going shopping?’, depending on what meaning you want to convey. So the word order changes, the verb changes and there are choices usually around that verb. ‘The mechanics of the language’ might also mean how a sentence changes when you make the subject say, ‘they’ instead of ‘she’. It might go from ‘She found her socks on the bathroom floor and her shoes by the front door’ to ‘They found their socks on the bathroom floor and their shoes by the front door’.
📷
An English grammar student studying. Master Verb Tenses: Learn the toughest part of English—verb tenses—with easy-to-follow lessons.
This capacity to be able to change, manipulate sentences comfortably, instinctively, without thinking about it - this is critical fluency. Being able to do this automatically is a big piece of what enables fluency. And you have to do a lot of listening, to be able to do this automatically. And that’s exactly how you mastered this in your own language. But sometimes a little practice, a little purposeful focus on this skill is helpful too.
So today I’ve made an exercise for you - something you can test yourself on - and this exercise will test your ability to manipulate verb tenses. Verb tenses are one of the hardest things to get right in any language and English is no exception. The fact that we have probably more verb tenses than most languages probably makes it more challenging too. So let’s practise - I’m going to stay with obvious tenses. This is just to give you chance to practise what you know and test yourself.
Use my description of my weekend to practise!
So what I’m going to do - I’m going to tell you about my last couple of days. Really nothing special or exciting that I did, just normal things. What I’m then going to do is talk about these same events and actions as though I’m on a different day, speaking about them. This will have the effect of moving the actions into a different tense. Tenses changed, but with exactly the same meaning and vocabulary!
So this is great practice on how the tenses might change and keep the same meaning, if you’re talking about the same events, but on speaking at a different time. It isn’t intended as a vocabulary lesson, so I’ve kept it simple, but do look up any words that you don’t understand, so they’re not distracting you and taking your attention. Let’s go through the actions for the various days.
Talking about Friday in different tenses
- TALKING ABOUT FRIDAY So firstly, let’s say I’m talking on Saturday about my Friday. I might say:-
‘Yesterday was a normal work day for me. I got a lot done and also did my washing and the weather was fine, so I dried my clothes on the washing line.’
Now take this sentence which is being said on Saturday and let’s try saying it first of all as though you were talking on Friday. Here’s the original again:-
‘Yesterday was a normal work day for me. I got a lot done and also did my washing and the weather was fine, so I dried my clothes on the washing line.’
Pause this podcast now and see if you can say that, as though you’re talking about today.
OK, so if all of that is happening today, you might say it like this.
‘Today is a normal work day for me. I’m getting a lot done and I’m also doing my washing and the weather is fine, so I’m drying my clothes on the washing line.’
There are variations of course, but making it present tense - or at least part of it present tense - is important. You might be clever and imagine you’re speaking at a particular point in the day, so you say|:-
‘Today is a normal work day for me. I’m getting a lot done and I’ve also done my washing and the weather is fine, so I’m drying my clothes on the washing line.’
So here, it sounds like one load of washing is already done and is drying out on the line. Whereas the original sentence made it sound as if the washing was a longer process! The are other possibilities too of course, that could be correct.
And what if you were talking about this Friday - on Thursday, making it all in the future tense? Pause again and have another go?
Well, it might sound like this:-
‘Tomorrow will be a normal work day for me. I’ll get a lot done and I’ll also do my washing and the weather will be fine, so I’ll dry my clothes on the washing line.’
Talking about Saturday in different tenses
- TALKING ABOUT SATURDAY Now imagine I’m talking midway through Saturday about my current day. It might sound like this:-
‘This morning I went to the garden centre and bought some plants with my friend. Then we went out for lunch - I had a feta cheese and olive salad and my friend had a chicken salad. We sat out in the sunshine because despite the fact that it’s October, it’s still warm. This afternoon I’ve got some work to do and I will be doing some cooking later in the day. Tonight I’m going out with my partner and to eat a curry at our favourite curry house.’
Let’s try putting most of that into future tense - as though I was now talking on Friday about my plans for this day, Saturday. Again pause the podcast and have a go.
Well, it might sound like this - this is talking on Friday about Saturday:-
‘Tomorrow morning I’m going to the garden centre to buy some plants with my friend. Then we’ll go out for lunch. I’m going to have a feta cheese and olive salad and my friend will have a chicken salad. We’ll sit out in the sunshine because despite the fact that it’s October, it will still be warm. In the afternoon I’ve got some work to do and I will be doing some cooking later in the day. Tomorrow night I’m going out with my partner to eat a curry at our favourite curry house.’
And what now if you were talking about these same Saturday events on Sunday? What would that sound like? Again, pause and see if you can do it?
OK, talking on Sunday about Saturday:-
‘Yesterday morning I went to the garden centre and bought some plants with my friend. Then we went out for lunch - I had a feta cheese and olive salad and my friend had a chicken salad. We sat out in the sunshine because despite the fact that it’s October, it’s still warm. Yesterday afternoon I had some work to do and I did some cooking later in the day. Yesterday evening, I went out with my partner to eat a curry at our favourite curry house.’
Why Do These English Words 🎓 Look And Sound Alike?
Talking about Sunday in different tenses
- TALKING ABOUT SUNDAY. Now imagine you’re talking midway through Sunday about your current day. It might sound like this:-
‘I love Sundays. Today I had a lie-in and I’m enjoying myself because it’s a free day and I can do what I want.’
Now imagine today is Saturday and you’re talking about Sunday in the future tense. What might that sound like? Pause and you have a go.
Well, it might sound like this:-
‘I love Sundays. Tomorrow I’ll have a lie-in and I’ll enjoy myself because it’s a free day and I’ll be able to do what I want.’
And lastly, imagine it’s now Monday and you’re talking about that Sunday. How might that sound? Again, pause and have a go yourself?
Well, it could sound like this:-
‘I love Sundays. Yesterday I had a lie-in and I enjoyed myself because it was a free day and I was able to do what I wanted.’
Let us know whether this was easy or difficult
OK. Now some of you might find this super-easy, this ‘ability to manipulate English sentences is something you already have. But some of you may have found this quite difficult - so this exercise may be something that you’ll want to practise some more - listen to this podcast a number of times of course - that’s always the instruction! But bear in mind - the sentences I’ve given you as answers are not the only possibilities. So see if you can find different possibilities instead of the ones I’ve said. But stick as close to the original meaning as you can.
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And another idea - you could do this with your own day. Try it when you’re in the shower, or lying in bed. Why not apply this to your life? Talk about yesterday's actions as though they're yet to happen - in English, of course! Or talk about today as if it's already history. This exercise won't just sharpen your grammar; it'll help your brain ‘wire’ to think fluently in English. So this is brilliant practice and it will all move your brain towards being able to do this automatically. And that will help you become fluent!
Goodbye
Let us know what you thought of this podcast - whether it was helpful or not, whether you liked it, whether it was easy or difficult or the right level. This sort of information is important to us at Adept English, then we can provide you with the right content!
Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.
Thank you so much for listening. Please help me tell others about this podcast by reviewing or rating it. And, please share it on social media. You can find more listening lessons and a free English course at adeptenglish.com
