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Hello, and welcome everyone. This is Minoo at Anglo-Link and this is the fifth video in our series

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learn the tenses

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Today, we're going to talk about state verbs

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This is a special group of verbs that you need to know about, and by the end of this video

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you will know what they are and how to use them correctly. So,

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When you're ready, we can begin.

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Right before we look at state verbs and differentiate them from

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action verbs, I'd like to give you a quick overview of the tenses that we've already looked at together

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Let's review them with three action verbs: 'say', 'play', 'drive' and 'rain'.

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So remember present simple

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was to speak about facts and habits

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'I play Tennis once a week.'

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'He drives fast.'

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'It often rains here.'

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And then we looked at present continuous

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which indicates an action which is in progress now.

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'I'm playing tennis now.'

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'He's driving to Paris at the moment."

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'It's raining again.'

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and then we moved on to present perfect continuous.

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It was to talk about an action that started in the past and is still in progress.

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'I've been playing tennis since I was 12.'

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'He has been driving for three hours'

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'It has been raining all day.'

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Then we looked at present perfect: an action that's complete at the time of speaking.

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'I've played tennis with her once.'

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'He has driven 300 kilometers so far.'

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'It has rained three times this week.'

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Then we looked at past simple

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which was for an action completed at a specific time in the past.

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'I played tennis with her when we were in Spain.'

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'He drove 100 kilometres before sunrise.'

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'It rained heavily last night.'

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Now you notice that all these examples are with what we call action verbs

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So what is the difference between an action verb and a state verb?

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An action verb, and most verbs are action verbs,

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designates an action, something that you can start and stop as and when you want

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By contrast, a state verb, and there are only a few of them,

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designates a mental state that you cannot really start and stop whenever you want

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There is a sense of continuity in them

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such as 'be', 'have', 'exist', 'know', etc

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Because of this sense of continuity

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They don't take continuous tenses. That's what you have to be careful with.

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When you're using your tenses, you've got to be careful not to put a state verb in the continuous form

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for example let's look at the verb 'to be'.

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'I'm being tired now'

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Doesn't sound right, does it?

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Because it's a state verb

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We only use simple tenses with state verbs, so 'I'm being tired now'

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changes to 'I'm tired now'.

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Or

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'I've been being tired all day' sounds really strange,

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again because the verb 'to be' is a state verb

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Keep it to a simple tense. In this case

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Present Perfect Simple

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'I've been tired all day'

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Let's look at two other state verbs

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'I'm having a red car'

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can't do because it's a state verb.

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'I have a red car'

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and 'I've had this car since 2006'

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One more example of the state verb not taking a continuous tense

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'I'm knowing this man'. 'Know'

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Simply, 'I know this man'.

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and

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'I've known him for many years'

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Now there are four verbs that can be a bit tricky

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because they can be either state or action.

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Let's look at the first one. We've already had an example of this. It's the verb 'have'.

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We saw the sentence

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'I have a red car'.

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In this example the verb 'to have' means 'to own'

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something that belongs to you, it's a state verb.

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However, the verb 'have' replaces many other verbs, like 'eat' and 'drink' and 'smoke'.

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It designates an experience or taking something.

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In this case, it's an action verb and it can take any continuous tense.

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For example

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'I'm having breakfast'

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or

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'They're having a good time'.

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The next verb that can be tricky is the verb 'think'

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Again, it has two meanings. It can mean 'to believe' in which case it's a state verb

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and you must avoid continuous tenses here

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For example: 'I think you're right'.

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But 'think' also means 'to reflect'

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like you can be thinking about something, then stop thinking about it and come back to it later.

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So, it's an action verb.

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Example: 'I've been thinking about selling my house'.

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The last two verbs you have to be careful of are verbs 'to live' and 'to work'

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again

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They can be considered as an action verb or a state verb.

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It depends on the situation or the circumstances on the context

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Many times, whether you use it as a state or an action verb, whether you put it in the continuous or simple form,

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doesn't matter really they mean the same thing

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So you could say 'I've been living here for 10 years' or

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'I've lived here for 10 years'

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And the same, the verb 'work'

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sometimes it's an action, you can start and stop working, for example, on a project

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and sometimes it's just your job. So there is that sense of continuity in it already.

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So feel which one is more appropriate

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Both are correct. You can say 'he has been working there since 2008' or

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'He's worked there since 2008'.

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Well, that's all for state verbs. I hope you've enjoyed this video.

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For more information you can go to our website

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Anglo-link.com, read the explanation, do some exercises to reinforce this point.

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Thank you for watching and I look forward to seeing you in our next video.

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Bye now