Class 01 – Time Tenses

Basic Concepts Review

There are 3 basic types of verbs in English:

- Lexical
- Auxiliary
- Modal

Lexical: Denote actions, events and states

They can stand alone

Brazil plays an important role in the UN General Assembly.

World War II changed European identity.

Lexical verbs are divided into regular verbs and irregular verbs:

Regular Verbs

To Look To Ask To Study

Base Form Look Ask Study
Past Form Looked Asked Studied
Participle Form Looked Asked Studied

Irregular verbs

To Drive To Fly To Read

Base Form Drive Fly Read
Past Form Drove Flew Read
Participle Form Driven Flown Read

Auxiliary: Add extra information to lexical verbs

3 auxiliary verbs: be, do, have

She is studying for the Itamaraty exam.

Historians do not consider this an important issue.
Polemical candidates have grown in popularity.

Obs: Be, do, and have can be used as lexical verbs!

Argentina is a rich country.
The President did his job.
The Middle East has many challenges ahead.

Modals: Used to indicate whether something is real or true, or if

something is speculation rather than knowledge. They are followed by
lexical verbs.

Main modal verbs: can, could, may, might, will, shall, should, would, must

You should Kissinger’s new book.

Simple Present

Format: verb in base form (in the present)

Used for:
General truths and facts

I study English at Curso Clio.

She is Australian.
Brazilians enjoy cultural diversity.

Regular events and habits

UNHCR works with refugees every day. (Don’t forget! Third person
singular = + s)
It always rains in the Amazon.
Congress usually votes its bills in the afternoon.

Notice all the adjuncts indicating regular events and habits!

↓
ADJUNCTS AND CONTEXT ARE ALWAYS VERY IMPORTANT!

Feelings and reactions at the moment of speaking

I feel sick.
This book looks interesting.
Wow! That hurts!
 Mental process verbs
(hear, know, reckon, see, suppose, think, understand, etc)

The government thinks this reform will lead to renewed growth.

The Minister understands what you mean.
I hear you are deciding whether to travel to Europe or not.

What’s the difference?

The party representative lives in New York. → Permanent

The party representative is living in New York. → Temporary

Present Progressive

Format: to be + ing form

Used for:

Events in progress at the moment of speaking.

Congress is voting right now.

They are traveling at the moment.
The Brazilian government is currently studying different options for the
exploration of its new oil fields.

Obs: Moment of speaking indicated either through context or through

adjuncts!

Obs 2: This tense highlights the temporary aspect of the event!

Actions which are repeated or regular, but that are judged to be

temporary

Is she taking English lessons three times a week?

(She has recently started taking lessons three times a week)

She’s seeing her teacher quite a bit at the moment.

(She’s meeting him regularly)
Obs: Do not mix this up with the simple present version of regular events
and habits!

Describing events that are regular but not planned, and often undesired

The police are always using excessive force.

The Mayor is constantly complaining about everything.

Attention: Verb to be in present progressive = temporary actions or

behavior

You’re being silly. (≠ you are silly)

We are being loud. (≠ we are loud)

Obs: Progressive uses of mental process verbs have different meaning

than their simple present use:

Thinking = considering/inclined towards an opinion

I’m thinking about traveling to Italy this summer.

See = meet with/have a relationship with

She’s busy right now. She’s seeing a client.

She’s seeing a man with whom she works.

Simple Past

Format: Verb in the past form

Used for:

Definite time in the past, clearly separated from moment of speaking

Time in the past is evident from context or through adjuncts!

There was a strike last week.

The Minister traveled to Greece two months ago.
Gilberto Freyre wrote Casa-grande & senzala. → We know Gilberto Freyre
died many years ago. (Casa-grande & senzala = Masters and Slaves)
Common past time adjuncts:
a year/two weeks/five minutes/etc ago
at two o’ clock/earlier today/this month/etc
last night/last week/ last month/etc
the other day/the other week
yesterday
etc

The simple past may be used for habitual events in the past

We did a lot of acting at school. (= we used to do a lot of acting at school)

They visited museums regularly when they lived in Sao Paulo.

Past Progressive

Format: to be in the past form + ing form

Used for:
Events in progress around a particular time in the past
Temporary aspect once again highlighted!
Adjuncts and context indicate both progressive aspect of action and time
in the past!

When the President was visiting London one year ago, he spoke to
students.
Where were you last night? I was working.
Fourteen hours later, Congressmen were finishing their speeches.

Compare:
Fourteen hours later, Congressmen finished their speeches. → The past
simple emphasizes the whole event, from start to finish.
The past progressive emphasizes the event as being in progress but
unfinished at the time referred to.

Events occurring as a background to other events which interrupt them

I was reading in my room when the phone rang. Sarah wanted to talk to
me.
The President was giving a speech when the attack happened.
 The past progressive may occur with adverbs such as always and
constantly to describe repeated unplanned or undesired events

People were always warning him that he needed to calm down.

Activists were constantly being threatened by militia.

The past progressive can be used to refer to a definite time in the past,
like the past simple, but it is chosen to emphasize the extended nature of
the event

I was talking to Jessica last night. (= I was talking to Jessica for a long time
last night)
We were working in the project all day yesterday.

Past Progressive X Simple Past

When used together, the past progressive suggests that the events may
be seen more as background or of secondary importance, or it is
highlighting their temporary aspect

She was here once, and I was writing an article. And she asked me, “Can I
help you?”
↓ ↓
Background Foreground

I was working so hard I had to get some rest.

Special Cases

Other verb tenses that may refer to present time:

Past tense:
Past simple and past progressive may be used for reasons of indirectness
and politeness, especially with the verbs be, hope, look for, think, want,
wonder.

Excused me, I wanted to check if there is a train at 2pm.

We were wondering about going to Rio de Janeiro. What do you think?
Will referring to general truths or used for politeness:

In the evening, he will always sit down and watch TV.

I’m sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to be a bit quieter.

Present Perfect

Format: have + past participle

The present perfect is used to refer to events that took place in a past
time-frame but that are important or relevant to the present, or to events
that started in the past but are still going on.

We will call this the “now relevance”.

----------- Event ------------→

Past --------------------------------→ Present

The “now relevance” is always indicated either through adjuncts or

through context!

Examples:
The economic crisis has caused unemployment in many countries.
(context)
I have been tired lately.
“I have run through the fields, only to be with you…” (context)
The country has changed significantly in the last twenty years.

Common adjuncts:

before
recently
so far
lately
up to/till/until now
today
to date
this week/month/year…

More examples:
During the last 20 years, there have been significant changes in
communication technology.
They have quit their jobs. (context)
I have worked in many different projects recently.

Note that, sometimes, adjuncts can be used with either the present
perfect or the simple past, depending on the speaker’s/writer’s
perspective. These include:

already
before
once
recently
today
this morning/week/etc

In this case, if the events happened at a definite point in the past, then the
past simple is used:

I called him today.

If the events are connected to the present, in other words, they have
“now relevance”, then the present perfect is used:

I haven’t seen her today.

What is the difference?

He has gotten stressed this month. → Something happened, and because

of it, he is still stressed. (“now relevance”)

He has been getting stressed this month. → Something started stressing

him and it is still happening.

Present Perfect Progressive

Format: have been + ing form
↓
(note that been is the verb to be in the past participle form)
The present perfect progressive is used for events which started in the
past and are still continuing.

-----------Event -------- Continuing→

Past --------------------------------→ Present

Again, context or adjuncts are going to be use to indicate the “event in the
past still continuing” aspect!

Examples:
She has been working for the company for many years.
I have been reading all night.
What have you been doing this afternoon? I’ve been studying.
Are you sad? You look like you have been crying. (context)

Present Perfect X Present Perfect Progressive

The difference between the present perfect and the present perfect
continuous may sometimes be an emphasis on the event itself as a
progressive, extended activity (progressive form)

It has rained a lot. → This would indicate that it is still possible to notice
the consequences, and hence, the “now relevance” of the rain, but it
probably will not rain anymore.

It has been raining a lot. → This would indicate that it started raining in
the past, and it will probably keep raining in the future.

Observations:

- Some verbs are rarely used in the present perfect progressive. These
include mental process verbs (hear, understand, know, etc) and sense
verbs (smell, taste, etc):

I’ve known Anne for 10 years now.

(I’ve been knowing Anne for 10 years now.

- The expression this is the first time when referring to an immediate event
is normally used in the present perfect, not the simple present or present
progressive:
[one passenger to another during a flight]
Is this the first time you’ve flown on British Airways?
(Is this the first time you fly on British Airways?)

In this case, the present progressive is most likely to be used in a

reference to the future:
Is this the first time you’re flying on British Airways? → Is this the first time
you will fly on British Airways?

Grammar exercise
Conjugate de verbs in parenthesis appropriately.

Adam Smith’s market never stood alone

- Amartya Sen, March 10, 2009

Exactly 90 years ago, in March 1919, faced with another economic crisis,
Vladimir Lenin discussed (to discuss) the dire straits of contemporary
capitalism. He was, however, unwilling to write an epitaph: “To believe
that there is no way out of the present crisis for capitalism is an error.”
That particular expectation of Lenin’s, unlike some he held (to hold),
proved to be correct enough. Even though American and European
markets got into further problems in the 1920s, followed by the Great
Depression of the 1930s, in the long haul after the end of the second
world war, the market economy has been (to be) exceptionally dynamic,
generating unprecedented expansion of the global economy over the past
60 years. Not any more, at least not right now. The global economic crisis
began suddenly in the American autumn and is gathering (to gather)
speed at a frightening rate, and government attempts to stop it have had
very little success despite unprecedented commitments of public funds.
The question that arises (to arise) most forcefully now is not so much
about the end of capitalism as about the nature of capitalism and the
need for change. The invoking of old and new capitalism played (to play)
an energising part in the animated discussions that took place in the
symposium on “New World, New Capitalism” led by Nicolas Sarkozy, the
French president, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, and Angela
Merkel, the German chancellor, in January in Paris.
The crisis, no matter how unbeatable it looks (to look) today, will
eventually pass, but questions about future economic systems will remain
(to remain). Do we really need a “new capitalism”, carrying, in some
significant way, the capitalist banner, rather than a non-monolithic
economic system that draws (to draw) on a variety of institutions chosen
pragmatically and values that we can defend with reason? Should we
search for a new capitalism or for a “new world” – to use the other term
on offer at the Paris meeting – that need not take a specialised capitalist
form? This is not only the question we face today, but I would argue it is
also the question that the founder of modern economics, Adam Smith, in
effect asked (to ask) in the 18th century, even as he presented his
pioneering analysis of the working of the market economy.
Smith never used the term capitalism (at least, so far as I have been (to
be) able to trace), and it would also be hard to carve out from his works
any theory of the sufficiency of the market economy, or of the need to
accept the dominance of capital. He talked (to talk) about the important
role of broader values for the choice of behaviour, as well as the
importance of institutions, in The Wealth of Nations; but it was in his first
book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, published (to publish) exactly 250
years ago, that he extensively investigated the powerful role of non-profit
values. While stating that “prudence” was “of all virtues that which is
most helpful to the individual”, Smith went on to argue that “humanity,
justice, generosity, and public spirit, are the qualities most useful to
others”.*
What exactly is (to be) capitalism? The standard definition seems (to
seem) to take reliance on markets for economic transactions as a
necessary qualification for an economy to be seen as capitalist. In a similar
way, dependence on the profit motive, and on individual entitlements
based on private ownership, are seen (to be/to see) as archetypal features
of capitalism. However, if these are necessary requirements, are the
economic systems we currently have, for example, in Europe and America,
genuinely capitalist? All the affluent countries in the world – those in
Europe, as well as the US, Canada, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan,
Australia and others – have depended (to depend) for some time on
transactions that occur largely outside the markets, such as
unemployment benefits, public pensions and other features of social
security, and the public provision of school education and healthcare. The
creditable performance of the allegedly capitalist systems in the days
when there were real achievements drew on a combination of institutions
that went (to go) much beyond relying only on a profit-maximising market
economy.
It is often overlooked that Smith did not take (to take in the negative
form) the pure market mechanism to be a free-standing performer of
excellence, nor did he take the profit motive to be all that is needed.
Perhaps the biggest mistake lies in interpreting Smith’s limited discussion
of why people seek (to seek) trade as an exhaustive analysis of all the
behavioural norms and institutions that he thought (to think) necessary
for a market economy to work well. People seek trade because of self-
interest – nothing more is needed, as Smith discussed in a statement that
has been quoted again and again explaining why bakers, brewers,
butchers and consumers seek trade. However, an economy needs (to
need) other values and commitments such as mutual trust and confidence
to work efficiently. For example, Smith argued: “When the people of any
particular country has such confidence in the fortune, probity, and
prudence of a particular banker, as to believe he is always ready to pay
upon demand such of his promissory notes as are likely to be at any time
presented to him; those notes come to have the same currency as gold
and silver money, from the confidence that such money can at any time
be had for them.”
Smith explained (to explain) why this kind of trust does not always exist.
Even though the champions of the baker-brewer-butcher reading of Smith
enshrined in many economics books may be at a loss to understand the
present crisis (people still have (to have) very good reason to seek more
trade, only less opportunity), the far-reaching consequences of mistrust
and lack of confidence in others, which have contributed to generating
this crisis and are making (to make) a recovery so very difficult, would not
have puzzled him.
There were, in fact, very good reasons for mistrust and the breakdown of
assurance that contributed (to contribute) to the crisis today. The
obligations and responsibilities associated with transactions have in recent
years become much harder to trace thanks to the rapid development of
secondary markets involving derivatives and other financial instruments.
This occurred (to occur) at a time when the plentiful availability of credit,
partly driven by the huge trading surpluses of some economies, most
prominently China, magnified the scale of brash operations. A subprime
lender who misled (to mislead) a borrower into taking unwise risks could
pass off the financial instruments to other parties remote from the
original transaction. The need for supervision and regulation has become
much stronger over recent years. And yet the supervisory role of the
government in the US in particular has been (to be), over the same period,
sharply curtailed, fed by an increasing belief in the self-regulatory nature
of the market economy. Precisely as the need for state surveillance has
grown, the provision of the needed supervision has shrunk.
This institutional vulnerability has (to have) implications not only for sharp
practices, but also for a tendency towards over-speculation that, as Smith
argued, tends to grip many human beings in their breathless search for
profits. Smith called (to call) these promoters of excessive risk in search of
profits “prodigals and projectors” – which, by the way, is quite a good
description of the entrepreneurs of subprime mortgages over the recent
past. The implicit faith in the wisdom of the stand-alone market economy,
which is largely responsible for the removal of the established regulations
in the US, tended (to tend) to assume away the activities of prodigals and
projectors in a way that would have shocked the pioneering exponent of
the rationale of the market economy.
Despite all Smith did to explain (to explain) and defend the constructive
role of the market, he was deeply concerned about the incidence of
poverty, illiteracy and relative deprivation that might remain despite a
well-functioning market economy. He wanted institutional diversity and
motivational variety, not monolithic markets and singular dominance of
the profit motive. Smith was (to be) not only a defender of the role of the
state in doing things that the market might fail to do, such as universal
education and poverty relief (he also wanted greater freedom for the
state-supported indigent than the Poor Laws of his day provided); he
argued (to argue), in general, for institutional choices to fit the problems
that arise rather than anchoring institutions to some fixed formula, such
as leaving things to the market.
The economic difficulties of today do not, I would argue, call for some
“new capitalism”, but they do demand (to demand) an open-minded
understanding of older ideas about the reach and limits of the market
economy. What is needed above all is a clear-headed appreciation of how
different institutions work (to work), along with an understanding of how
a variety of organisations – from the market to the institutions of state –
can together contribute to producing a more decent economic world.
Translate the following into English.
Liderança é objetivamente um excedente de poder que extravasa de
forma organizada, sistemática – mesmo que a percepção não indique
claramente essa forma. Poder que será real – como o poder econômico,
militar e tecnológico dos EUA ou da China – ou psicológico – como o
carisma, a habilidade ou o prestígio de um líder político, celebridade ou
instituição. De qualquer forma, o líder precisa ter recursos suficientes –
próprios ou daquilo que representa, um grupo, um país, uma entidade,
uma instituição – que lhe permitam tomar as iniciativas e enfrentar os
custos, ônus ou resistências próprios de todo processo em que ocorre
liderança ou disputa por ela. A liderança absorve energias mentais e
materiais, implica capacidade de iniciativa, gera compromissos e não
existe no vazio, mas sim como uma relação de poder.
Leadership is objectively a surplus of power / power surplus that overflows
/ spreads in an organized or systematic manner – even though / although
perception does not clearly indicate how this happens. This power will be
real – as the economic, military and technological power of the US or
China – or psychological - such as charisma, skill or the prestige of a
political leader, celebrity or institution.
Não falo apenas de poder externo para associar e conduzir parceiros em
um projeto, mas também de poder interno, para que a decisão de liderar
o que quer que seja constitua uma política de Estado o mais consensual
possível, e não um instrumento de prestígio de quem exerce o poder.
Algumas ideias sobre a liderança brasileira – Sérgio Danese