CalifJim  +  552648 Fri, 08 Aug 08 08:27 PM New2grammar “CJ, If you don't mind, could you give me context for both of the versions? I don't see any difference between them.” Frankly, I don't see any difference either, so I just threw darts and picked that one at random.  I have no fancy academic explanations for you!  (See my next post.)  CJ  CalifJim Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004 California Veteran Member 22,447 "There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche Grammar, Difference Between, Present Perfect

	CalifJim  +  552656 Fri, 08 Aug 08 08:44 PM Yankee “If I were typing out an e-mail and wanted to tell the person that I was sending an attachment with it, I doubt that I would use the simple past tense.” I feel the same. But there's nothing I could find in the original example that sets up the idea that I am typing out an e-mail! Here's my version. I had been having so much trouble with some new software that I didn't think I would ever manage to get a picture attached to an e-mail that I had been working on.  And then, today, suddenly -- I don't know which button I pressed -- the dang thing started working.  I attached a picture to the e-mail!!  Now I'm confident that it's finally working.  Whew! Moral of the story:  The simple past and the present perfect (as isolated sentences) are always both correct.  All that is required are two narratives that make each of them correct.  It's called "contextualizing".  So when one person chooses the simple past (as an isolated sentence) as 'correct', and another chooses the present perfect (as an isolated sentence) as 'correct', all it means is that the two people had different narratives going on in their minds when they made their judgments.  As I've said before, presenting two sentences, one in one tense, one in another, and asking which is correct, is like asking: Which is correct?  I saw a dog.  or   I saw a cat. In the case of the tenses, as in the case of the animals, the one that's correct is the one that you mean when you say it!  CJ  CalifJim Tenses, Simple Past, Present Perfect, Past Tenses

	Yankee  +  552665 Fri, 08 Aug 08 09:29 PM Hi Jim I agree with what you're saying, and I hope you noticed that I wrote "might disagree" in my last post.  When I first posted in this thread, I initially tried to pick out what I thought would be most likely choice in AmE, and then finally gave up -- simply because there wasn't enough context. Yankee Joined on Sat, Apr 15 2006 Connecticut, USA Veteran Member 6,502 Amy "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain Present Perfect

	YSchneider  +  552695 Fri, 08 Aug 08 10:35 PM Could you also tell me your opinion on this? Today I got an e-mail from an US company and there was written: I have spoken with our Quality Manager, Mr. Todd Richardello, and he told me that he has just sent the requested documents, via Fax, to your facility.   Is it necessary to use I have spoken with or can I also say I spoke with... What do you feel is different between the meanings of both?  YSchneider Joined on Thu, Aug 7 2008 New Member 21 Present Perfect

	CalifJim  +  552738 Sat, 09 Aug 08 03:37 AM   YSchneider “Could you also tell me your opinion on this? ... Is it necessary to use I have spoken with or can I also say I spoke with..”   You can say whichever you want as long as you say what you mean, i.e., as long as you say what is in your mind.  Are you thinking that the act of speaking is "dead and gone"? -- an event that is part of history?  Or are you thinking that the act of speaking still has influence or relevance for the present? "In general, use simple past when you're thinking of the event as dead and buried.  Use the present perfect when you think the event still has some chance of  influencing the present state of affairs." CJ  CalifJim Simple Past, Present Perfect

	Kooyeen  +  568213 Sat, 20 Sep 08 11:30 AM I agree with those who said it depends on the context, and they might be interchangeable, depending on what you have in mind. If me and my sweetheart are about to leave, I might ask "Did you lock the door?" or "Have you locked the door?", but if we were already on the road I would only choose the version with the simple past, "Did you lock the door?" The simple past is a general tense you can use to mention whatever happened in the past, whether it was years ago or just seconds ago. The present perfect is actually pretty much of a "present" tense, because although you use it to mention things that happened in the past, the real focus is on the present situation. Have you locked the door? = Is the door locked now? Can we leave now? Did you lock the door? = Did you do that? Do you remember locking the door in the past few minutes? So my interpretation of... YSchneider “I have spoken with our Quality Manager, Mr. Todd Richardello, and he told me that he has just sent the requested documents” ...is: I have spoken... = I know some things. I am in a position where I can tell you some things now, because I spoke with Todd in the (recent) past I spoke... = In the (recent) past, I remember speaking with Todd. Speaking with him is something that happened in the (recent) past. So the simple past and the present perfect are often interchangeable, neither is completely right or completely wrong, but both the choices mainly depend on your interpretation and on the context. The rule of thumb "do not use the present perfect with specific time references in the past" comes from that interpretation: if the speaker mentions a point in the past, they can't be focusing on the present and use the present perfect, but they are much more likely to just think of that past event and therefore use the simple past instead. This is the best explanation I can give on the present perfect. I hope there's nothing wrong or weird... because I am not a native speaker, hehe. Just the way I see it, based on what I learned here in these forums. Kooyeen Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005 Italy Senior Member 4,980 Parental Advisory / Explicit Posts Tenses, Simple Past, Present Perfect

	CalifJim  +  568365 Sat, 20 Sep 08 06:08 PM Kooyeen “This is the best explanation I can give on the present perfect.” It's just about the best explanation anybody can give, K.  Very well said!  CJ  CalifJim