E34 Intermediate English: How to Talk About Past and Future Event Dates | Learn English Podcast

Welcome back to the Learn English podcast, the podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.

On today's episode, I want to discuss time and communicating when an event took place or will take place in time.

If this is your first time watching or listening to an episode, if this is your first time here, welcome!

You might not know that I am an English teacher.

I teach English online to students who are learning it as a second language.

And one of the points of confusion that I get from my students is that they're confused about how to tell when a event occurred or will occur.

They have difficulty explaining if something happened in the past, when it happened in the past, or if it's happening in the future, how soon in the future it's going to occur.

There's a little bit of confusion of how to word this, what phrases to say, and how to communicate when an event took place or will take place.

Because of that, on today's episode, I want to go over what a native speaker, what an American English speaker would say if they're trying to describe when an event took place.

If this sounds like you, if you are a little bit confused about how to describe when an event occurred or will occur, don't worry.

We're going to go over everything you need to know so you can communicate effectively with a native speaker.

With that, let's begin.

Before we start, I just want to remind you that in the episode podcast description, you will find a list of vocabulary words and phrases that I use in this episode so you can incorporate them into your vocabulary learning system and start using them in conversation yourself.

You can find these vocabulary lists in this episode and in previous episodes so you can help expand your knowledge of English.

Let's talk about how to describe when something occurs in time, events that have occurred in the past.

Of course, if something happened the day before today, we would say yesterday.

This happened yesterday.

If it's been more than one day though, there's different ways you can say it.

Let's say something happened two days ago, so you would just say that this happened two days ago, three days ago, four days ago.

You can use that days ago to describe how many days it's been since the certain event happened.

You can also keep using ago with different amount of times.

So you can say three hours ago, which means something happened three hours in the past, two days ago, which means it happened two days in the past, two weeks ago, which means two weeks in the past, and so forth.

You can use it for months, three months ago, four months ago.

You can also use it for seasons.

So you can say two summers ago, which means not this last summer that just occurred, but you can say two summers ago.

You can say two years ago and even more two decades ago.

For example, I could say it's been 10 years since I took a class, which means the last time that I took a class was 10 years ago, 10 years ago.

The last time that I was in Paris was two decades ago, which means 20 years.

Again, that ago really helps, and you can demarcate, you can clarify, you can communicate how long it's been by just putting ago after the period of time that you're saying for hours, for days, for months, for seasons, for years, and for decades.

Another way to say this is to say this past.

So this past week, this past month, this past summer, this past year.

That means that it happened within the immediate time frame of one.

So this past week means one week.

This past month means one month.

This past summer means one summer ago.

This past year means within this last year.

Again, this is more specific.

It means one, and then whatever time period you are putting with it.

This past hour, this past week, month, season, year, time period of one, this past decade, which means one decade, which would be 10 years.

This past century, which would mean a hundred years, this past century.

So again, it could be any time period, anything from an hour to a century, even a millennium, but it has to be just a time period of one.

One, and then whatever you say.

Hour, day, week, month, year, etc.

You can also say last instead of past.

Last has a little bit smaller amount of things you would put it with.

You would put it with a specific day of the week, or the word week, a specific month, or the word month, a specific season, a specific holiday, or a year.

Last Wednesday, last week, last June, last month, last summer, last Christmas, last year.

If you are going further than that, if you were seeing a period of time that's longer than a year, then really what you're going to say is in the last decade, in the last century, in the last 20 years, you wouldn't just say last 20 years.

That is extremely odd.

You would say in the last 20 years.

In that case, when you use in the last, when you use that specific structure, what you're referring to is something that occurred that has continued to occur until this day.

In the last 20 years, we've had a technological revolution.

That means something started 20 years ago, technology -wise, that is continuing until today, that is not talking about a specific event that was a one -time event, like if you just say the word last.

Last week, I went to Rome.

That is a one -time thing that is not continuing until now.

That doesn't mean that I'm still in Rome.

But if I say in the last year, I moved to Rome, that means I am still in Rome, and I'm still continuing to live there because it's an event that happened in the last year that continues until today.

That phrase just by itself, in the last year I went to Rome, doesn't really make sense by itself.

You would want to have further detail, and it sounds like you need more of a story if you use that structure.

I know it's similar words, but that structure does mean something different.

If you just say last one -time event, if you say in the last event that is still continuing from the past to affect the present today.

Let's talk about time periods and things that are coming up in the future.

Now, there's a couple ways to describe things that are going to happen in the future.

One is to say this.

This means the next date that's coming up, or the next time period that's coming up, or even referring to the current time that you're in.

For example, if you're listening to this podcast, this podcast, when it comes out, it comes out on a Monday.

Now, if I have an event that's happening this Friday, that means five days from now, this Friday.

If I'm talking about something that's happening in this month, this month is currently March, that means I would say this month, which is referring to the month of March.

Something that's happening in the future, but happening still within the month of March.

If I'm saying something that's going to happen in the month of April, I wouldn't say this month, I could say this April, which means I'm referring to the month that is coming after this month, this April, on this specific April that is in the year of 2024.

I could also say this summer, which is the summer of 2024, or this year, which means the year of 2024.

All of those are ways to talk about the specific day, week, month, season, or year that I am currently in, and that something is going to happen in the future.

So I could say this Friday, I am going to go to Rome.

This summer, I'm going to go to Rome.

This November, I'm going to go to Rome.

This year, I'm going to go to Rome.

Again, going to Rome is in the future, and then this part is trying to clarify, trying to communicate what exact day, month, season, or year I'm going.

I can also say the word next.

Now, next means it's something that's coming up.

So if I'm talking about the Friday that is five days from now, I wouldn't say next Friday.

I would say this Friday, because I'm in that current week, and it's this time period that I'm in, so I would say this Friday.

If I'm referring to something that's in the month of March, I wouldn't say next.

I would say this, this month, because I'm in that current time.

However, if I'm trying to relate something that's outside of the current time I'm in, but is coming up in the immediate future, I would say next.

Next Friday means not the Friday of this week, but the following week.

Next month means not this month, but the following month.

Next year doesn't mean this year that I'm currently in of 2024.

It means 2025, the following year.

So next is why I'm saying the following time period.

If I'm saying that next Friday I'm going to Rome, that means not this week, but the following week on a Friday I'm going to Rome.

Next Friday. If you want to be more general with your time, that's going to happen in the future, and you don't want to have a very specific time or date, but you just want to give a general knowledge of when this is happening.

You can say in or within, and then say the next.

So in the next five minutes, I'm going to stand up.

That is a very short amount of time, but I'm not telling you the exact minute that I'm standing up.

I'm just saying it's going to happen within the next five minutes.

So within or in can be for very short amount of times, like five minutes, 10 minutes, or an hour.

It can also be for a very long amount of time, like a year.

So I can say within the next week, I'm going to call my insurance company.

I'm not telling you what day, I'm not telling you what time, but I'm giving you a general frame of reference that this event will occur in the next week, within the next seven days.

I can also say within the next month, or in the next month, I'm going to go to Rome.

Again, I'm not telling you the day.

I'm not telling you time.

I'm just telling you that within the next 30 days, that event will occur.

You can also say this with a year in the next year, I'm going to go to Rome, which means any time within that year that event could happen.

If you're trying to be a little bit more specific, you can use the words from now.

So let's say I'm going to Rome in the next month.

In the next month, I'm going to go to Rome.

That means any time in the next four weeks.

If I want to tell you a specific week, I can say three weeks from now, I'm going to Rome.

That gives you the specific week.

It doesn't tell you the date, but a general idea of when it is.

If I have an event that's coming up and I'm moving, and let's say that's happening in three weeks, but specifically it's happening on a Thursday, I can say three Thursdays from now, I am moving.

That's telling you the specific day of the week.

So if you have an event that's occurring, not the next Friday, not the following Friday, you can say from now to explain the future.

Three Fridays from now, three Mondays from now, three weeks from now, three months from now.

That tells you when the event is occurring and it's happening at the end of the time period that you're saying.

If you say in, that means it could happen any time within the time period that you're saying.

So in the next month means that it could happen any time in those four weeks, but four weeks from now means it's happening at the end of four weeks.

Slight difference, but a little bit more specific and telling you the exact end date of when that event is happening.

I hope you learned a little bit about how to discuss when an event occurred or will occur, what words and phrases to use if it occurred in the immediate past or if it happened a long time ago.

Also what words and phrases to use if you have a specific date of when an event will occur in the future or you just have a general idea, a general timeframe of when it will happen.

I know there's a lot to English.

There's a lot to learn.

So hopefully this episode helped you with your English skills and is helping you on your journey to fluency.

A reminder to check out the description of this podcast episode, you can find the vocabulary list, which includes a list of the words and phrases that I used in this episode.

That way you can study them and start to use them in conversation yourself.

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[Mastering English Time Expressions: Talking About the Past and Future]-[E34 Intermediate English: How to Talk About Past and Future Event Dates]

📋 Summary

Mastering Time Expressions in English

Describing Past Events

Navigating Future Events

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript