Present Perfect

OK so we’ve talked about the.

That’s a dog barking outside.

We’ve talked about the past progressive tense where something is going on.

And we talked about the simple past.

Pretty simple pretty easy.

Now it starts to get a little bit more complicated.

We’re going to talk about present perfect OK.

I’m going to try to draw it out so you can get a picture of why we would use this.

And then we’ll of course look at some examples.

This is a bit tough because of when we use it.

And it’s also a little bit tough because how you make it is more than just changing one word.

Usually the present perfect focuses on something that we say now about the past as well.

It includes the past and the present.

The first one that we use is to express something that we do now or is still going on now but which began before.

And we’re sort of combining the fact that it began before and has continued up to the present moment.

So all the way up until now to do that we use have or has and then we use the what’s called the past participle the past participle is a special verb.

OK.

It’s a special verb because it’s sometimes different than the simple past.

For example you know go and you know went right went is the simple past But gone is the past participle Gone is the past participle so have gone would be the correct way to use it OK have gone and there are lots of different past participles.

The difficult thing is that sometimes they’re different from the simple past and sometimes they’re the same.

For example we talked about the word walk before have walked is also the past participle WRAL K D.

I walked I have walked it’s the same but for this one go went and gone it’s different.

And you just have to get a feeling for it or if you really want to get serious you can look up a long list of verbs and study what the past participles are.

I would recommend just reading and watching movies and talking to people to get a feeling for which ones they are and I think you probably know many of them now you would have also seen another form where you have have has right.

I have.

She has.

It has.

They have.

Then you have the past participle bin b e n.

Yes.

Yes bin.

It’s got to be bin.

OK.

B was or were and the past participle is been I have been.

She has been it has been they have been and then a verb like this plus i n g OK for example she have or has has been living i n g living she has been eating she has been going she has been talking whatever she’s been talking for forty five minutes when will she finish.

That means she’s still talking now he’s been walking for a week he’s been walking for a week that means he’s doing it still and it started a week ago this is how we usually use this kind of grammar this kind of tense.

OK something that started before and continues now.

So we’ll look at some examples of how we do that and then we’ll talk about this next kind which is a little bit more it’s a little bit more complicated.

OK.

So this type I I have been playing football for three years.

OK.

Does that mean that I’m playing football at this moment.

No.

That means in my life.

Right.

I started three years ago and I still play maybe I only play once a week or once a month.

But the point is it’s still going on now for me.

OK.

I have been playing football for three years continuing.

Let’s try another one.

I’ve.

We can also say I’ve I’ve means I have.

Right.

I’ve been working overtime a lot recently now for this one.

We don’t say how much time has passed and that’s OK.

The point is that it did begin before some point maybe a week or two weeks or three weeks we don’t know exactly but it’s still going on now.

That’s the important point.

OK.

So something started before continuing now.

I have been working overtime a lot recently working overtime by the way means that you go over 40 hours in a workweek usually.

So usually supposed to work eight hours a day maybe you work 10 hours every day.

It’s called overtime.

It’s called overtime and working overtime a lot recently.

So this one is kind of simple right.

Now the other way that we use this kind of tense is to talk about something that’s about the past.

It’s true about the past but we’re saying that it’s it’s true now about the past that that might be a little bit confusing right.

But if I give you a couple of examples I think you get the idea a little bit better.

So this one we usually don’t say have been blah blah blah.

We just say I have done that.

We just use the have and then past participle for example I have visited Canada three times totally in my life.

Now why wouldn’t I just say I went to Canada three times.

What’s the difference between I have been to Canada three times and I went to Canada three times.

When we’re talking about how many times we’ve done something totally right or within a certain time period we could say I have been to Canada I have visited Canada.

Totally right or within one year or whatever three times and we don’t care about when each time happened.

So then we use this one.

That’s how we use it.

That’s true now about the past.

If I want to say when I went then I’ll use the simple past.

I’ve been to Canada three times I went last June and I went twice the year before.

So we often use the simple past to talk about the specific times and or when it happened and we use this one to just say totally this many times don’t worry about the details we’re not going to focus on the details.

We’re just talking about right now at this point in my life.

How many times has this thing happened or has it happened or not.

Sometimes when we want to say did it happen or not.

We used the same way we can say for example I have seen you before seen as the past participle of Si I have seen you before.

It’s true.

I’ve seen you before.

You don’t you say I saw you before because then we might focus on the details.

I saw you before last Tuesday I saw you last week.

The details.

Right.

But if we say I have seen you before we don’t care about when it happened.

It’s just true.

Right.

So we use this one often when we’re talking about just the reality the truth.

Right.

If we wanted to say the opposite.

I have never seen you before is also correct.

We can add the word never here.

I’ve never seen you before.

It is not true that I have seen you but sometimes it really is exactly the same as the simple past tense.

And you can choose either one it doesn’t really matter.

You can say I already eight it happen.

You’re done.

OK.

I have already.

What should I put here.

What’s the past participle for eight eaten.

I have already eaten I already ate.

Is it different.

Not really.

So sometimes they’re kind of the same and you can choose either one but in many cases many times they are not the same.

And you need to be careful if you want to talk about details maybe use simple past if you want to talk about totally how many times or totally did it happen or not.

Is it true then maybe use the present perfect tense.