6. Grammar for Talking about Current Discoveries and Inventions

Now, look at some of the sentences from the transcript again. While reading, compare the verb tenses used in the first and second paragraphs.

The problem in our oilfield here in Brunei is that you can’t find the oil in one single large reservoir located in one place underground. At the same time, we cannot build one oil platform for every small pocket of oil. This is the problem that we’ve been trying to solve for years. Fortunately, Jaap has recently found a solution.

One day, he was sitting with his young son in a cafe while his son was finishing his milkshake. Jaap watched his son bend the straw and steer it around the sides of the glass to suck the last drops of milk from it. Suddenly, while he was watching his son, Jaap had a eureka moment.

You may have noticed that the second paragraph uses the past tenses (simple and progressive) in order to tell a story about an event finished in the past. However, the first paragraph uses the present tenses because it describes a current issue and gives some facts or actions that happened at an unspecified time in the past or have been happening over a period of time up to the present. Find out more about the present perfect simple and continuous tenses. Then complete this task to make sure you can distinguish between the present perfect simple and the past simple tenses. After you finish, do this task to make sure you can distinguish between the present perfect simple and progressive. Finally, put the lines in this dialogue in the correct order. This task will let you see how various tenses are used in context.