Sunday, July 29, 2007

“Watched” versus “Seen” for ESL

When practicing the Present Perfect tense with my ESL students, the past participle “watched” invariably comes up. It usually comes up when my student is forming a question, for example, “Have you watched Harry Potter yet?”

I don’t know about other English-speaking countries, but in the U.S., this question means, “Have you watched the Harry Potter video or DVD on your television set yet.” We usually use “watched” when we are talking about a video.

If I want to know whether someone has gone to a theater to watch Harry Potter, then I will ask, “Have you seen Harry Potter yet?”

“Watched” is for movies on video and DVD.

“Seen” is for movies at the theater.

--end--

No comments: