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[TheLongWayHome]

You can even present it like maths:

I moved here in 2000 (Past) + (Present) I live here now

= I have lived here for 8 years / since 2008

Then give them 'sums' to do. I find about 75% of a class will get it this way.

[Phil_K]

I think it's a sad situation that you have to explain all this, even in adult classes. These people are usually highly-qualified in their field, but with little knowledge of basic Spanish grammar (as the form in English is practically the same as in Spanish).

In an ideal world it would be:

1) HAVE or HAS + Past Participle
2) Let's practice for a while
3) Right, NEXT!!!

It reminds me of my German teacher at school, who once told a student, "I don't know why you're studying German; you can't even speak English!"

[GueroPaz]

First as for the present perfect: I teach it as a tense that is primarily describing a person's status at a present time, based on how his experience makes him who he is. Melee's example,
I have lived here for X years = I am now a person with X years of experience of living here.

For the past perfect, I use a time line (which is handy if you also teach them math in English). Almost all the examples I see in English writing are narrative, to explain what had happened just before a single event occurred, all in the more recent past and the prior past.

"I had just finished my homework when the tornado struck."

In private tutoring, I kept finding examples of the past perfect in the books we read together. Then it was another review of what I taught before.

Another example of past perfect: "I had lived there for X years before I moved."

This is also a typical opportunity to switch the order of the two clauses.

"The tornado struck just after I had finished my homework."

[kingkristopher]

Hey,

I get that the Present Perfect is also a present tense. Yet students don't have much problem with that part of it. My students usually have problems using the Present Perfect as a past tense since the name has "present" in it, hence the psychological block.

[TheLongWayHome]

[Phil_K]

... and very recent events (which even the gringos misuse ) :

He has just arrived (AmE = He just arrived) ... different in Spanish, acaba de llegar

[GueroPaz]

Most of us who have been raised in America have used the present perfect tense for most of the time we have spoken English. Nevertheless, we ask, "Did you eat yet?"

[Phil_K]

Any ideas for correcting the perennial "WOULD/GOOD" pronunciation problem that many Spanish speakers have?

[thelmadatter]

Do you mean they dont pronounce either well or do you mean that they pronounce "-ould" and "-ood" equally? Are they pronounced differently in British English? For me, the two words rhyme.

If that is the case... then the problem is probably that they pronouncing both as what was taught a long time ago as a "long u" (like the pronunciation of too or food) (IPA= u), the sound that Spanish has and not as a "short u" (upside down v in IPA in most dialects), which Spanish does not have.

Basically, students hear these as the same sound. One thing you can do is have them pronounced too and food and have them notice that they round their lips, like a kiss (somewhat exaggerated but they'll get the point). For words like would and good, the lips are relaxed. They will notice this difference very quickly even though it is not all of what goes into the distinction.. it will change the sound quality if they dont round the lips.

Other common pronunciation problems:

"th"... tip of tongue between the teeth

a in "gato" vs. a/e in "cat" with gato, the tip of tongue does not touch bottom teeth.. with cat, it does.

with the vowel sound in "caught" shift tongue back from the "a"/gato position slightly.

s/z... f/v ... vocal cords do not vibrate with s and f (in English or Spanish) but do with z and v. You can feel the difference if you put your finger on the front part of your throat.

v and b... v is upper teeth on lower lip... b is both lips together.

For you Spanish learners...

�... middle of tongue (called a blade) to the middle of the roof of mouth (hard palate)

j as in "hijole". back of tongue rises to back of roof of mouth (soft palate) like you do with "g" in girl... but does not touch it. Almost but not quite

rr... tip of tongue vibrates on ridge just behind the upper teach (called alveolar ridge)

(still cant do Spanish j's and rr's consistently)

That all being said (I know my BA and MA in linguistics would come in handy!) I have to say that I personally skip pronunication teaching for all but fun activities. I realize, tho, many of you may not have this luxury. Pronunciation exercises in textbooks are one of the biggest wastes of time... I never understood what I did wrong in Spanish until I had a full-semester Spanish phonetics class.... I can tell you what I do wrong but I STILL mis-pronounce things and have an accent my bf likes to make fun of from time to time. However, I can converse and be understood... that is the important thing.

[Phil_K]

[MO39]

[Guy Courchesne]

Wood/would/good is a problem, but you can find the w elsewhere. Oaxaca, for example, or guau guau, as every dog owner in Mexico knows.

[MO39]

[cscx]

Well, depending on the age of your students, they may say "guey" and "guero" more like "wey" and "wero"...I've seen them typed that way on IM conversations. So that might be a connection to make.

[Milenka]