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Grammar
Course: Grammar > Unit 2
Lesson 5: Verb aspect: simple, progressive, and perfectIntroduction to verb aspect
If verb tense allows you to control the past, the present, and the future, then aspect gives you even finer control over time. David, Khan Academy's resident grammarian, explains. Created by David Rheinstrom.
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- I'm an English tutor from Australia, and I haven't come across the term 'verb aspect' before, so I'm guessing it's an American term. Does anyone know if there is a British/Australian grammatical term that is equivalent to the term 'verb aspect'? Thanks!(18 votes)
- You could also consider them tenses, Bookybeth (fabulous username, by the way!).
Wikipedia has it listed underaspect
, but it wouldn't be super inaccurate to call them tenses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect#English(28 votes)
- Isn't "I have walked" in the past?(8 votes)
- It is in the past, but MORE than in the past, it is in the past perfect. The simple past is "I walked."(7 votes)
- would' i am going to go to walk' be a future tense(10 votes)
- Mr David Rheimstorm does "future progressive tense" a part of verb aspect.
Tell me to know, if you know.(8 votes) - what does the word aspect mean(6 votes)
- How many actuall verb tence is there? three,four,or five(4 votes)
- There are 12.You can find the diagram here: http://www.idioms4you.com/downloads/verb-tenses/verb-tense-diagrams.html(7 votes)
- but for present you can write walking why walk(4 votes)
- There are three tenses: past, present and future.
There are four aspects: simple; progressive; perfect and perfect-progressive.
That makes 12 possible ways to inflect a verb to express meanings concisely.
Be glad you are not learning Spanish, which has "conditional" and a very active "subjunctive" set of rules, too.
"walk" is simple aspect.
"walking" is progressive aspect.
Learn the difference, and you will profit from it.(5 votes)
- Shouldn't the aspect "I have walked" come under then(i.e.past)?(2 votes)
- Your example "I have walked" belongs to the perfect aspect.
Compare these:
I walk. Simple aspect, present tense.
I walked. Simple aspect, past tense.
I will walk. Simple aspect, future tense.
I am walking. Progressive aspect, present tense.
I was walking. Progressive aspect, past tense.
I will be walking. Progressive aspect, future tense.
I have walked. Perfect aspect, present tense.
I had walked. Perfect aspect, past tense.
I will have walked. Perfect aspect, future tense.
I have been walking. Perfect progressive aspect, present tense.
I had been walking. Perfect progressive aspect, past tense.
I will have been walking. Perfect progressive aspect, future tense.(8 votes)
- What is the definition of a verb?(4 votes)
- You need to back up to the lesson on introduction of verbs. It's found there.(2 votes)
- you watch one piece you upvote(5 votes)
- R =(ALT value÷ALT ULN)÷(alkaline phosphatase value÷alkaline phosphatase ULN).(0 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] Hello grammarians. So I've talked the idea of verb tense, which is the ability to
situate words in time, but today I'd like to
talk about verb aspect, which is kind of like tense, but more so. Let me explain what that means, so with basic verb
tense, we can distinguish between the present, the
future, and the past, right, so now, later, then, right, past, present, and future, so I could say, simply, "I walk", "I will walk", and "I walked", so this is the past, this is the present, and this is the future,
so that's verb tense, but what's really cool about verb aspect is it's this tool that really allows us to expand all the possible ways of expressing something in time, so you could just say "I walk", true, but you could also say "I am
walking" or "I'm walking", or you could say "I have walked" or "I have been walking". All of these things are different aspects. They're different versions
of the verb to walk, in the present tense, and we'll explain all of the those. They'll each get their own video, but I just wanted to impress upon you the idea that within every tense, past, present, and future,
that there are also four mini tenses, or baby tenses, and this is what we call aspect, and we'll get to the names of those later. Don't worry about that now. I just wanted to just plant the seed. You can learn anything. David out.