Name: Learn English Grammar - Present Perfect Vs Simple Past Tense - What’s the difference |
Uploaded: 2020-03-19T20:30:32.000Z
Duration: 10 min 23 s
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Gerund

So which tense do we use for talking about the past? Past simple of course we use it

To-infinitive

because the name says it, but what about present perfect? Can we use present perfect to talk

Modal verbs - A2

about the past? Yes we can, but how? So stay tuned to find out how we can use present perfect

to talk about the past. My name is Michelle and stay tuned…

All right so as I told you that you can use present perfect to talk about the past but before we go to that let's see

how we use past simple to talk about the past. This is quite simple, so we say, “I finished

the course last month.” It's quite evident that we are talking about the past because

the main verb is in the past, it has ‘ed’. All right, so which verbs have ‘ed’? Regular

verbs have ‘ed’ like dance-danced-danced, finish-finished-finished, complete-completed-completed.

So these are regular verbs and this is a past simple sentence. For an action that finished

in the past, all right? Now let's look at the next one, “We saw James yesterday.”

So the action is finished, all right? “We saw James yesterday.” Very interesting.

Now here again we have the past simple verb, the past form of ‘see’ but, we do not

say ‘seeed’, do we say ‘seeed’? We say saw because this is an irregular verb,

so we do not add ‘ed’ here, great. Something that I want you to pay attention to is, “I

finished the course last month.” So here we are using last month, right? So past simple

is usually used with past time markers, for example here we say yesterday, here we say

last month. So we usually have past time markers for past simple tense. Past time markers which

means they tell us about a time in the past, great. Now here we have the next sentence

and this is very tricky because here we are going to compare past simple with present

perfect, so “I've lived here since 2006.” Good, what is the tense of this sentence?

So the tense of the sentence is present perfect because we have ‘have’ here. ‘I've’

is a contraction for ‘I have’. Whenever we have ‘have’ plus the past participle

which is lived here it makes it the present perfect tense which is used to talk about

the past, but what is the difference? So the difference is that here, “I've lived here

since 2006.” So here we are talking about a time in the past until now. So this is not

a finished action. This is an action that started in the past and has finished in the

present until now, possibly not even finished in some cases. So let's see it on the timeline,

right? Here is our present, okay? This is the future and here we have the past, so let's

say I started living here in 2006, this is a moment in the past, until now which is 2016,

so this time is covered by ‘have’ which is present perfect. I cannot say, “I lived

here since 2006.” That will be incorrect. We only use the present perfect, so I'll say,

“I've lived here since 2006.” And if you want to use the past simple then it will change,

then you will talk only about one moment in the past, like this, now, past and future.

So if you're talking about the past simple you'll say, “I lived here in 2006.” So

at one point in the past, you lived here, when? In 2006. So this is 2006 and that's

when you lived. But here we are talking about a time from 2006 until now, so this is the

purpose of present perfect it connects the past with the present until now. Now let's

see different ways to use the present perfect to talk about different situations. So here

we have, “I'm not hungry, thanks.” “I've already had dinner.” So do you see this

is an action, okay? A situation and this is an action, so the action is that, “I've

already had dinner.” this happened in the past, right? But it's results are seen in

the present so because I ate in the past that's why right now I'm not hungry. So that's how

you can use this tense. You can use this tense to show the present effects of a past action.

“I've already had dinner.” “I'm not hungry now, thanks.” Okay, now let's look

at the next one that we have “I've seen that film four times.” So what do you see

special here? We are trying to show how many times something happened until now. So until

now, until this moment I have seen that film four times. How many times something happened.

So we can use the present perfect to talk about the number of times something has happened.

Right, “I've been to Japan four times.” Which means until now I've been to Japan four

times. With that we come to the next one, “Rebecca has had a baby girl.” This means

that something happened just now, very close to the present. What am I trying to do here?

I'm trying to announce the news, “Rebecca has had a baby girl.” So this is a news

which happened just now, so a recent news. So you'd use the present perfect to talk about

a recent news but be careful, if you want to add more information to it, if you want

to say that what time the baby was born, so you'd say, “Rebecca has had a baby girl,

she was born at 3 o’clock.” “She was born at 3 o’clock.” Now this is past simple,

so whenever you're trying to add more information to a recent news in present perfect you say

it in past simple. “Rebecca has had a baby girl, she was born at 3:00” Right so here

we are using the past simple along with present perfect. Now let's look at the next sentence

that we have with us, “I've hurt my leg and I can’t walk properly.” So as you

can see that this is an action in the past and this is the result, okay? Just like this

one, “I'm not hungry, thanks.” “I've already had dinner.” So because somebody

hurt their leg that's why they can't walk properly and maybe they're limping. Now something

tricky you'll often hear Britishers say it out like this, “I've hurt my leg and I can't

walk properly.” But when Americans talk about an action in the past with present results

they often use the past simple. They'd say, “I hurt my leg and I can't walk properly.”

So you'll know whether a person is America or a Brit just by hearing them out which tense

do they use. Okay the next one, “Have you called your mother yet?” Again here you'll

often hear Britishers use, “Have you called your mother yet?” But the Americans would

use the simple past for this, so what do you think would be the simple past for this? You'd

say, “Did you call your mother yet?” Here we remove the ‘ed’ because we cannot have

more than one past word in the sentence so “Did you call your mother yet? And because

it's a question. Great. So with this we understand how to use the present perfect to talk about

the past and here's another tricky sentence for you, “I've already had dinner.” How

would an American say it? Definitely a British will use have but American won't. He'd say,

“I already had dinner.” All right, just like this one. Okay I hope that you've completely

understood how to use the past simple to talk about the past and even the present perfect

to talk about the past in different ways. So with the past simple we talk about an action

in the past but with the present perfect we talk about an action in the past which has

present results. Thank you so much. I hope this was helpful and you'll have great results

in the future by watching all my grammar lessons. Please click on other videos to watch other

grammar lessons. Thank you so much, bye, bye.