TESOL/Time

Adverbs of Time

Still is used for things that are continuing.

She is still studying. (She was studying before and she continues studying now.)
In ten years she will still be studying. (She will continue studying and not stop after 10 years.)

still ... not is about the past, as opposed to not ... yet, which is about the future.

She still has not found what she is looking for. (She was searching in the past.)
We haven't run out of gas yet. (We may run out in the future.)

Yet is about things that we expect.

Already is for things that happened early, often earlier than expected.

I was born in 1975. In 1980, I was only five but I

knew I wanted to be an artist.

I had not entered middle school

so I couldn't study art in school. Instead of painting

in school I painted at home, and by the time I was ten I had

learned how to paint flowers

very well. I continued painting in middle school and high school, and when I went to college I

was

into painting so I decided to major in it. By my second year I had

painted

something for an exhibition. I was very skilled but

not making very much money from painting.

In fact, I had not sold a single painting

, but I

kept trying and in my third year

of university I sold my first painting. It was a painting of a rose. I can

remember how

happy I was after I sold it.

Language classification: this is an English as a Second Language resource.