English Grammar - Past tense of 'should' - "I should have", "You shouldn't have", etc.

Hey guys, this is Alex.

Thanks for clicking and welcome tothis lesson on "should" in the past form.

Now some of you might think that wesimply add "ed" to the end of "should".

With most verbs we simplyadd "ed" to show their past form.

However,"should" is a little different.

First you have to understandwhat "should" actually means.

So in the present, and if you look at pastlessons on AngVid, you will see that when

we use "should" we use it as a form ofadvice, something that is a good idea to do.

So for example, if we say "I should studytonight" it means it is a good idea that I

study tonight becauseI have a test tomorrow.

Now what if it is thenext day after a test?

And on your test you got,hmm, not a very good grade.

So if you failed your test,what should you say in this case?

So we don't say "Ishoulded studied".

Say "I should have".

In the past,"I should have studied".

So if you have done some research in thepast about "have", you will know that "have"

requires a past participle tocomplete the sentence correctly.

So we would never say"I should have studied".

Again, it is something in the past,so you always say "I should have studied".

Past participle of"studied" being "studied".

Let's give a few more examples.

So how about "you should",let's see, "you should have".

Now hmm, if you are writing a letter to someone,okay, and you forget to mail the letter, okay,

so the person thinks youdid not write the letter to them.

So they might say "you should have done somethingin the past, wrote the letter in the past".

So in the present, "write" is "write", in thepast "write" is "wrote", the past participle

of "write" is "written".

So "you should have written", we'll say "writtento me", "you should have written to me".

So again, remember, this is in the past, itwould have been a good idea in the past if

you did these things.

Okay, "I should have studied", "you shouldhave written to me", "he should have", let's

say, "called his mother", "he shouldhave called his mother" in the past, okay.

And finally, "we should have", let's say,"listened to the teacher", "it would have

been a good idea","listened to the teacher", okay.

So again, this is an action thatwas completed in the past, okay.

That's also something thatmay or may not have happened.

So if you look at the first one, "I shouldhave studied", you did not study in the past,

but it was a good idea for you to study,okay.

Now when we're talking about the pronunciationof this, in written language, usually in formal

written language,we do not use contractions.

In spoken language, people don't often go"I should have studied", we simply contract

the two words "should" and "have", and wepronounce them "I should've", "should've".

Same with all of these.

"I should've studied", "I should've written", "Ishould've called", and "we should've listened".

Okay.

And now we're going to talk abouthow to put this into a negative form.

So we'll be rightback in one second.

Whoa, what happened?

Okay, so if we want to change this into anegative statement about something we should

not have done in the past, like you just heardme say, we simply put the word "not" in front

of "have".

So instead of saying "I should have studied",again this is a time in the past that could

have been at any time, I should have studiedyesterday, I should have studied last week,

or it can just be an indetermined time inthe past, I should have studied, we just say

"not",I should not have studied.

So maybe in this case, the test was easy, soyou say "I should not have studied", okay?

Same with this, you should not have written tome, maybe you're not happy with your friend,

you don't want to hear from them, so you tellthem "you should not have written to me",

you should not have written your letter,okay?

This one, now this, I want to make a notehere that when we are speaking, usually we

don't say "I should not have studied", wesimply condense the words again, and we put

"should" and "not" together.

So we say "shouldn't", okay?

So this sentence is "he shouldn't have calledhis mother", he shouldn't have called his

mother.

Now we go one step further, and we actuallyalmost combine these sounds, instead of saying

"shouldn't have",we say "shouldn't have", okay?

Shouldn't have called his mother, we "shouldn'thave listened", instead of "shouldn't have

listened","shouldn't have listened", okay?

So again, if you say "I should not havestudied", people will understand what you mean.

Just understand that when you're listeningto people speak these sentences, they might

condense the sentences, okay?

So instead of saying "I should not have studied",people might say "I shouldn't have studied",

or "I shouldn't have studied",okay?

If you want to test your knowledge on "shouldnot", "have", or "should have", again, the

past form of "should", please checkout www.engvid.com and do the quiz.

Thanks again for clicking,and take care.