Simple Present Perfect Tense

Form of the Simple Present Perfect Tense

The Present Perfect is formed with the present of have + the past participle. For regular verbs the Past
Participle has the same form as the Simple Past Tense: e.g. arrive, arrived, have arrived. For irregular
verbs the Simple Past and the Past Participle can be formed in a variety of ways: e.g. drink, drank, have
drunk.
I have I!ve"
#ou have #ou!ve" arrived $d$ regular"
%e has %e!s" finished $t$ regular"
She has She!s" started $Id$ regular"
It has It!s" shut irregular"
&e have &e!ve" lost irregular"
#ou have #ou!ve" drunk irregular"
They have They!ve"

Present time and past time

Students speaking Serbian as their mother tongue often misuse the Present Perfect Tense in 'nglish
since there is no such tense as the Present Perfect in their mother tongue. The Present Perfect is often
wrongly seen as an alternative to the past, so that a student might think that I've had lunch and I had
lunch are interchangeable. It is also confused with the Simple Present, so that an idea like I've been here
since February is wrongly e(pressed in the Simple Present with I am.
The Present Perfect always suggests a relationship between present time and past time. So I've had
lunch probably" implies that I did so very recently. %owever, if I say I had lunch, I also have to say or
imply when: e.g. I had lunch an hour ago. Similarly, I've been here since February shows a connection
between past and present, i.e. duration between these two points in time, whereas I am here can only
relate to the present and cannot be followed by a phrase like since February.
In the Present Perfect Tense, the time reference is sometimes undefined) often we are interested in
present results, or in the way something that happened in the past affects the present situation. The
Present Perfect can therefore be seen as a present tense which looks backwards into the past. *ompare
the Simple Past Tense, where the time reference is defined because we are interested in past time or
past results. The following pairs of sentences illustrate this difference between present time and past
time:
I haven!t seen him this morning. i.e. up to the present time: it is still morning"
I didn!t see him this morning. i.e. the morning has now passed"
%ave you ever flown in *oncorde+ i.e. up to the present time"
&hen did you fly in *oncorde+ i.e. when, precisely, in the past"
%e has been in prison for , years. %e is still in prison"
%e was in prison for , years. %e served his sentence. %e is free now"