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Present Perfect Continuous

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  The Present Perfect Continuous or Progressive is formed with the elements of the Perfect tenses (verb have) and Continuous tenses (verb be and Gerund in the main verb) and it describes a recent action which started in the past but it didn´t finish which is the difference with the Present Perfect Simple. The pattern uses then the elements necessary in the Present Perfect and Continuous   tenses: has (3 rd person singular he/ she / it) / have (rest) + been + V-ing (Gerund)   As in the Present Perfect Simple we also use prepositions “for” and “since” to point out to a quantity of time (minutes, days, weeks, months, years, centuries, etc.) or any date of time or specific event in the past till the present respectively.   The negative form just add particle “not” after the auxiliary verb “has/have” and the interrogative form inverts the order (has/have + subject + been+ V-ing) in which is obligatory to respond in a short answer (Yes/No, subject + has/have or negative form as

Past Continuous

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Past Continuous This verbal tense is also named Past Progressive and as in all the continuous or progressive tenses it describes an ongoing action, event or experience that was occurring during a certain period in the past though we do not know whether it finished or not. We must remember that the rest of languages have the same pattern in Continuous tenses as English mainly Latin derived languages such as Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese in which we use this pattern in Continuous tenses:   Verb “BE” (ser o estar) + V-ing (Gerund) In the past we use “was/were” and the main verb ending in -ing. When the verb ends in one only consonant and vowel, the consonant is doubled. Examples: The branch was hitting the wall with the wind. The driver was stopping the vehicle to avoid an accident.   I was travelling to the UK. - Yo estaba viajando al Reino Unido You were travelling to the UK - Tú estabas viajando al R.U. He / She / It was travelling to the UK- Él /Ella / E

Modal Auxiliary Verbs

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                                        In English there are certain auxiliary verbs which always accompany a main verb introducing a modality of ability, permission, probability or future, suggestion or advice and obligation in the meaning of the sentence. They are different from the main auxiliary main verbs Be, Have and Do because these three verbs can function alone in the sentence as main verb with meaning (“ser / estar, tener, hacer” correspondingly) or they can accompany a main verb in order to form another tense. For example: Be: the Continuous tense (Present, Past and Future Continuous) and the Passive Voice. Have: the Perfect (Present, Past and Future Perfect), similar with Spanish “haber”. Do: forms the negative and interrogative sentences in the Present/ Past Simple tenses. The modal auxiliary verbs are immediately followed by the main verb or the particle “not” and the main verb without “to” and modals never have suffixes of the Past tenses or the third person sing

Word formation in English: affixation

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  Word formation in English English is a modern, rich in vocabulary and versatile language and that is due to the great capacity of different manners to enlarge the English lexicon by means of creation, assimilation, borrowing, etc. of new words. There are many types of word formation, such as derivation, borrowing, coinage, blending, calques, neologism, acronyms, clipping and abbreviations, reduplication, back-formation, though the most important are derivation, conversion and compounding. Affixation: It is another type of derivation in which we form a new word without the change of the root or stem of the word but adding prefix, suffix or infix ( a bound morpheme). Prefixes: a new word can be formed if added a prefix at the beginning of a word, they usually come from Latin, Greek or Germanic words. Suffixes: A new word is formed whenever we add any of these derivational suffixes at the end of the word.   SUFFIX MEANING EXAMPLES -l