Unit 11: The bucket list
The present perfect with ‘ever’ and ‘never’
Select a unit
- 1 Nice to meet you!
- 2 What to wear
- 3 Like this, like that
- 4 The daily grind
- 5 Christmas every day
- 6 Great achievers
- 7 The Titanic
- 8 Travel
- 9 The big wedding
- 10 Sunny's job hunt
- 11 The bucket list
- 12 Moving and migration
- 13 Welcome to BBC Broadcasting House
- 14 New Year, New Project
- 15 From Handel to Hendrix
- 16 What's the weather like?
- 17 The Digital Revolution
- 18 A detective story
- 19 A place to live
- 20 The Cult of Celebrity
- 21 Welcome to your new job
- 22 Beyond the planets
- 23 Great expectations!
- 24 Eco-tourism
- 25 Moving house
- 26 It must be love
- 27 Job hunting success... and failure
- 28 Speeding into the future
- 29 Lost arts
- 30 Tales of survival
Session 3
Practise your present perfect tense and learn some new vocabulary as we meet a famous Scottish singing superstar and find out about her life story.
Activity 3
Pronunciation workout
Limber up!
To talk about life using the present perfect try out this pronunciation workout where you get to listen and repeat some key words and phrases. Make way for Sophie.
Listen to the audio
Hi it's Sophie here with a pronunciation workout. It's a chance for you to listen and then repeat.
When talking in the present perfect, the ‘a’ sound in have or has is not usually pronounced strongly. It uses the Ə (‘uh’) sound - more like the vowel sound in butter, and not the vowel sound in cat. So, have sounds like /hƏv/ and has sounds like /hƏz/. Come on, let's say it together…
I have been to London… I have been to London… [pause]
She has learnt to speak English… She has learnt to speak English… [pause]
You can contract the words 'I have' to 'I've' – I've been to London. I've been to London. You try it now… [pause]
And 'she has' or 'he has' becomes 'she's' or 'he's' – She's learnt to speak English. She's learnt to speak English. You try it… [pause]
In the negative form – 'have not' is usually contracted and pronounced haven’t – and 'has not' is usually said as hasn’t. Note, the ‘a’ sound is strong, as in cat.
Have you got that? Now repeat after me…
Haven't… I haven't been to London… I haven't been to London… [pause]
Hasn't… She hasn't learnt to speak English…. She hasn't learnt to speak English… [pause]
When speaking in the present perfect we often use the words 'ever' and 'never' – and it's good to know how to stress these words. Repeat after me…
Never… never… I've never been to London. I've never been to London… [pause]
She's never eaten Indian food… She's never eaten Indian food. [pause]
Ever… ever… Have you ever been to London? Have you ever been to London? [pause]
Has she ever eaten Indian food? Has she ever eaten Indian food? [pause]
How did you get on? Well done. Bye for now.
Download
Click here to download the audio (size: 4.4MB)
End of Session 3
Did you enjoy that? That's it for Session 3. By now you should have a better understanding of present perfect but if not, don't worry, there's still time to practise in Session 4 when we hear about more life experiences – and talk about our own!