Grammar Spod: Present Perfect
Dear friends of English grammar,
I am delighted to share with you the undeniable secrets of the lovely English language once again this month.
Having had a closer look at the Past Continuous tense in last month’s StopPress, this time we will be looking at the Present Perfect tense.
The Present Perfect
Let’s turn to the ever so useful Cambridge Advanced Learners’ Dictionary for the definition of the Present Perfect tense:
‘The grammatical tense which you use to refer to actions or events which haven been completed or which have happened in a period of time up to now.’
We use the Present Perfect tense for the following:
To say that a finished action or event is in some way connected to the present:
I can’t come to school because I have broken a leg and an arm.
To give news of recent events:
The managing director has said that the classrooms are untidy.
For past events when we are thinking of a period of time continuing up to the present:
Have you seen the classrooms?
To say that something has happened several times up to the present:
The teachers have tidied them every day this week.
To talk about how long present situations have lasted:
But they have always done it this way.
In some languages there are tenses which are constructed like the English Present Perfect tense. Compare:
- French: J’ai travaillé.
- German: Ich habe gearbeitet.
- Italian: Ho lavorato.
- Spanish: He trabajado.
But note that in English is used differently from most of the similar tenses in other languages.
The Present Perfect tense is often used with indefinite adverbs that mean ‘at some time/any time up to now’ such as ever, never, before, already, still, for, since etc.
It is also used with unfinished time expressions such as today, this week, this month, this year etc.
I hope you enjoyed this introduction to the use of the Present Perfect tense. Please let me know if there is a tense or a grammatical concept you would like to read about in particular in one of the following editions of StopPress. I would be delighted to hear from you at stoppress@laltorbay.co.uk.
Until next month – yours sincerely,
Countess Grammar. AM
