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I buy and sell all kinds of things on Ebay, and they have a great selection of inexpensive language learning software and hard to find books. Signing up is free and will test your English a little bit.

ESL go.com's "Rome" free online grammar class: present perfect, past perfect, past progressive

Sometimes it can be hard to know when you have to use the past simple, the present perfect, the past progressive (continuous), or the past perfect. They all describe things that happened in the past.

I'm going to ask you to study this conversation between me (Jim), my wife (Eun Mi), and our friend (Ted). As we talk about traveling to Rome in the past, see if you can type into the box the correct tense of verbs I give you after the box.

The past simple is used 7 times. It is used for an action completed at a definite time in the past.
The present perfect is used 4 times. It is used to refer to the past, but not an exact time in the past.
The past perfect is used 2 times. It is used for an action that happened before a specific time in the past.
The past progressive is used 1 time. It is used to talk about an action in progress at a specific time in the past.

Here's the dialogue about Rome. Type the correct verb form into each box (use the verb I give you in parentheses after the box). Do not use contractions (use "I have" rather than "I've").

Ted: you ever (be) to Rome?
Jim: Yeah, we (go) there for our honeymoon.
Eun Mi: It (be) his first time but I (be) there once before.
Ted: So you (be) to Rome twice?
Eun Mi: Yeah. The first time I (study) Italian and (get) a job, but the second time I (do) not work.
Jim: We just (enjoy) our honeymoon.
Ted: And Jim, you never (be) to Rome before?
Jim: Right. Our honeymoon (be) my first time.
Eun Mi: What about you Ted? you ever (be) to Rome?
Ted: No, but I (ask) because I always (want) to go.



As I always say, the only way to really learn grammar is to try using it. You can tell us one of your stories on the free English practice message boards. If you have been to Rome or have a travel story, tell us about it on the travel message board. The more you use English to communicate, the easier it will be to remember the grammar!

Return to ESL go.com's free online English class list.
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Return to ESL go.com's English for travel class list.

English travel and English tourism links

If you want to study English for travel or English for tourism, you might enjoy my fun travel & vacation idea weblog or my culture travel guide website. A British travel site to check is Holiday villa Rentals.