... Excuse me? Please, tell your English teacher they're wrong. 'I' is just I. That's obvious. 'I've' is a contraction of 'I have'. Examples: I done that. I've done that. Only one of those is correct. The first is grammatically retarded. The second is correct, and fully expands to "I have done that". I suggest you find a different English teacher, or ask them to start teaching you properly.
Depends on in what context your teacher is telling you to use them. As CF stated above, "I've" is a contraction for "I have." So it'll only be used with past tense. (But not all past tense will use "I've)
I'm hoping that your English teacher is thinking of a specific context that he/she just failed to communicate. For example, sentences like: I ate the chicken. I needed to get some sleep. I went to the movies. should emphatically _not_ be changed to "I've ate the chicken", and so on. On the other hand, sentences like: I eaten the chicken. I been sleeping. I been to the movies. are indeed incorrect and should be changed to: I've eaten the chicken. I've been sleeping. I've been to the movies. I'd suggest asking for further explanation. ChickenFreak
Not in standard English. If you expand it you get "*I have ate the chicken", which should be "I have eaten the chicken" (The asterisk I put at the beginning is a convention used to show that a phrase or sentence is wrong [1]. "*I've ate the chicken." is normal in some dialects, though, and might also occur if somebody mis-speaks, so it might be appropriate in dialog. [1] Actually, that it's "non-standard" -- linguists avoid making "right" or "wrong" judgments about things like that.
Because some words are inherently past tense. Examples: ate, slept, spoke, wrote, did You need a first or third person pronoun for those types of words. These include names, titles, he, she, it, they, I, me, you[when used in a first person narrative by the speaker, else it's a second person narrative], and probably a few others. Examples of proper use: "I ate, Tom slept, and the teacher walked to the store." "He worried while she juggled the machetes." If you used "I've" with all past tense first person narratives, it would at some points be an equivalent to a double negative. "I've ate" "I've slept" "I've sat." Those don't work. However, some other past tense words do work with "I've". "I've done things that would make your blood curdle." "I've lived, loved, and been hurt." "I've never done drugs in my life!" So it's a case by case thing.
It's not really case-by-case, although the English language always reserves the right to throw in a few irregularities. "I have eaten" is present perfect, "I ate" is simple past. In the case of "slept" the past simple is the same as the past participle, so you can say "I slept" (simple past) or "I have slept" (present perfect). The former is more idiomatic if that's all there is to the sentence, but if you extend it to something like "I have slept in four poster beds with silk sheets and I have slept on benches in bus stations" I think you will see that "I have slept" is unexceptional. "Sat" is similar; the simple past is the same as the past participle, so "I sat" and "I have sat" are both grammatically ok but the latter is not idiomatic except in longer constructions. So the rule is that "I've" should be followed by a past participle, which is often but not always the same as the simple past.
They're not. The message said that they were at some points equivalent. The obvious point of equivalence is that there is a redundant word. It can get tricky working out the relative time of things. Compare: I'd walked all the way from town.with: I said, "I've walked all the way from town."The first is relative to the speaker now, so it's "I'd walked". The second starts out relative to the speaker now, but the stuff in quotes is what the speaker said then, so it's "I've walked".
I'm going to go out on a limb and say she was talking about a specfic part Can you tell us what you where talking about?
I think you have misunderstood your teacher. I = me, myself. I've = I have I've is an abbreviation for I have.
It's quite simple. If you can say "I have", you can use "I've". If you can say "I am", you can short it to "I'm". The ' is simply a replacement for one or more letters to make it easier to say. For instance, would you say "I do not know" or "I don't know"? They both mean the same, but "don't" in this case is simply short for "do not". (edit: do not -> donot -> don't.)
first person narrative: I went to the store to buy milk and met the love of my life. vs third person narrative: She went to the store to buy milk and met the love of her life.
And the rare, but not unknown, second person narrative: You went to the store and met the love of your life.
