B1

Present Perfect and Past Simple

This is a difficult grammar point for Spanish speakers because we think that present perfect is a kind of past in Spanish (we called it pretérito perfecto simple). Let's see the main differences between these two tenses:

Rise vs raise

Tanto raise /'reɪz/ como rise /'raɪz/ significan subir, elevar, incrementar... Sin embargo tienen algunas diferencias:

Attend vs Assist

Attend: To be present at an event

I attend classes every Monday.

Assist : to help sb to sth

Sarah assists elementary school children with their homework every Monday afternoon.

More Commonly Confused Words

Fun vs funny

Fun is used to describe something that you enjoy doing.

It is fun to play football / I have fun when I learn English

Funny: funny is normally used to talk about things that make you laugh 

Used to vs Would

Would can be used to talk about past habits.

My grand father would come home from work, he would sit by the fire and drink a cup of tea

Present Perfect

We use present perfect:

  • To talk about past experiences when we don't say when they happened. If we say when they happened (minutes ago, yesterday, in a date) we use the past simple.
  • To give news if something has happened recently we often use just