I was talking to one of my students last week, and asked him, ‘Did I tell you I put a vegetable garden in my backyard?’ Nearing the end of our lesson, he asked me why I had used the past simple and not the present perfect.
If I had used the present perfect, my question would have been ‘Have I told you I put a vegetable garden in my backyard?’
I was puzzled- he made an excellent point. Why hadn’t I used the present perfect?
Present perfect is a form of past tense that is usually used to talk about events that happened in the past but have a connection to the present moment (I’ve eaten all the doughnuts and now there are none left). It could also be used to talk about something that started in the past and continues until now/during a time period that isn’t finished yet (I’ve eaten most of the doughnuts, but I’m not finished yet!). It could be used with the word ‘just’ to talk about something that happened in the recent past (I’ve just finished eating all of the doughnuts). We can use it when the time period isn’t so important but the experience or relevance of the past action is important or relevant (I’ve eaten more doughnuts than any other person on earth). We can also use it for repeated actions that happen during an unspecified time between the past and now (I’ve eaten all the doughnuts every time my partner buys them, so now I’m not allowed to eat any more).
Past simple, on the other hand, is often used to talk about a completed/finished action before the present, often used with a time phrase for a specific period of time (On Saturday, I ate all the doughnuts). It can also be used with adverbs of frequency (I always eat all of the doughnuts), an indefinite point in time (The other day I ate all the doughnuts) or when it’s the main event in a story being told in the past (Our main character ate all the doughnuts before the police arrived to take her to doughnut jail).
Going back to my student’s question- why hadn’t I used the present perfect? It was relevant at the moment, so why did I use past simple?
Now, dear reader, I hate to tell you this but both past simple and present perfect would be correct in these situations. English is a tricky mistress, so let me try to explain why I think I used the past simple: I was thinking of a moment, long past, completely finished, when I had asked that specific question. Anecdotally, I’ve also found that generally speaking (and I mean speaking), North Americans tend to use less perfect tenses in their speech. Why? No idea.
Ok well, I have an idea but it’s weird and it’s not backed up by like, research or anything. I spoke with an American colleague about this, and we both agreed that using perfect tenses sounded both too posh and a bit foreign (which would make sense, as my British colleagues used perfect tenses all the time). Maybe living in Canada has changed my speech patterns back to what they were when I was growing up. Maybe not.
Regardless, here’s a picture of that aforementioned garden. It’s coming along nicely if I do say so myself.
My question for you today is: do you struggle with past simple and present perfect? Do perfect tenses exist in your native language?
English Class with Heather 