Search results for 'tag:Difference between tag:Past perfect' matching tags 'Difference between' and 'Past perfect'

Past Perfect Tense and Present Perfect Tense

iconoffashion — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 06:13:14 GMT

Can you explain the different between "Sharon had already gone home." and "Sharon have already gone home." I know one is past perfect and the other is present perfect. But what does each sentence mean?

Re: Had + present usage

Tanit — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:45:10 GMT

Hi,

phanish

Could you please give me an example to show the usage of "had come" and "had came". I am quite confused about these.

Yes, I see you're quite confused.
Fandorin has already told you that "had came" does not exist. Shall I try and repeat with different words what he meant?

Have a look at any dictionary. It will show you the three forms of this verb: come, came, come

The first "come" is the present simple: I come here everyday by bus.
The second, "came", is the past simple: Yesterday I came here by bus.
The third, "come", is the past participle. You can combine the past participle with the appropriate form of the verb "to have" and you'll get either the present perfect (have come - has come) or the past perfect (had come).

You cannot combine have, has or had with the past simple -- only with the past participle. So, there are no such things as ~~have came, has came, had came~~. They are completely wrong. You can only say (in a suitable context): I have come, She has come, I had come.

Now, if your next question were'When should I use "I came" and when "I had come"?', my answer would be: please study the difference between past simple (I came) and past perfect (I had come). But please bear in mind that ~~"I had came~~" is incorrect.

Does this make sense to you?

Re: until

Tuongvan — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 04:42:32 GMT

Hi teachers,

Could you possibly tell me whether there is any difference between the past simple and past perfect in this sentence:

They did not know each other until I introduced them.(simple past)

They did not know each other until I had introduced them.(past perfect)

Thank you in advance

Re: Present Perfect Vs Past Perfect

Clive — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:16:25 GMT

Hi,

Could someone help me understand the difference between Present Perfect and Past Perfect ? As far as I know in both tenses are used when an action begins in the past but continues into the present / holds relevance in the present.

You'll find a lot of discussion on the Forum about these Perfect tenses, if you use 'Search'. However, here are a couple of simple comments for you to begin by considering.

As you know, use Present Perfect when an action has some relevance to the present.
eg I have passed my driver's test, so I'd like to borrow your car.

Use Past Perfect when an action has some relevance to a later point in the past.
eg He had an accident last Thursday. He had passed his driver's test.

eg Tom came home at 7pm. Mary cooked dinner. She cooked it after 7pm.
eg Tom came home at 7pm. Mary had cooked dinner. She cooked it before 7pm.

Best wishes, Clive

Present Perfect Vs Past Perfect

nands_krish — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:58:04 GMT

Hi,

Could someone help me understand the difference between Present Perfect and Past Perfect ? As far as I know in both tenses are used when an action begins in the past but continues into the present / holds relevance in the present.

Thanks...
N

Re: tenses

Clive — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:39:50 GMT

Hi,
what is the difference between had shown and shown
I had shown is Past Perfect tense

shown is a past participle. I wonder if you meant I showed, which is Simple Past.

People often ask about the difference between Past Perfect and Simple Past. First, search the Forum with these terms and you will find lots of discussion. Then, ask any questions that you still have.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: Is "There is the ..." an exceptional use?

jazzmaster — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:27:58 GMT

CalifJim

Probably not. There may be a better way to finesse this with a different wording.
Yes, but from the viewpoint of the authors and the teacher, this may be considered a harmless "white lie".
Out of curiosity, does the book actually use the words, "serious grammatical error"? Or is that your impressionistic paraphrase?

Thanks CJ

"Serious grammatical error" is my paraphrase. But when and if ESL students start to expressly state "this IS an exceptional usage", I suppose that means "these is a set rule on this and no one can break that in any shape or form".

"the simplification of the grammar at the beginning makes it much easier for them to navigate the language with confidence in the beginning stages" ... I fully concur with your view here. This indeed is the ideal way of teaching something to someone, I would say. However, the reality is that they will soon start feeding what a SVOC is, along with modifier/qualifier, the difference between a relative pronoun and adverb and all that good stuff to students who even cannot pronounce the word "English" correctly yet. I have an impression that they do present "grammatically acceptable" sentence structures, rock-solid rules and what not all at once. It is not a fun way to learn a foreign language. That is why some students grow not to like the subject after short while.

Let's say you are in a store with a hardcore grammatical ESL student, and you say:
*&@!#% !! I just realized I left my wallet home!!
... in stead of saying "It's all right, CJ, here, take $100. You can pay me back tomorrow.", (granting that he/she understood what you said), the ESL student will be too busy thinking "Why did he not say "I HAD left my wallet"? Because he is describing an event that happened obviously prior to the moment "he realized", it should be the past perfect tense, thus "I HAD left". It could be an exceptional use of the "realize ... that ...." structure but I am not sure. Or should I just point out his grammatical mistake?" ... this is the mentality of students who are being taught by those hardcore grammar books, and I am not exaggertating even a bit.

Thanks.

Re: dared to dream

CalifJim — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:36:04 GMT

Interesting. The tense switch did not occur to me as a possible problem. There is certainly no implied if, as in if you (ever) dared to dream (such a situation) -- not to my ear.

I would say it's an abbreviated way of saying situation that you have never dared to dream.

never seems to neutralize the difference between the simple past and the present perfect at times. (The present perfect is usually the "more correct" formulation.)

There is nothing that implies an if in these, for example.

This is a situation [you / we / they] (have) never experienced before.

Henry is good at planning ahead. He often brings up potential problems that [the boss / Kate / the staff / the committee] (has) never thought of.

I (have) never made that statement. It is a statement that I (have) never made.

The same situation does not occur with the past point of view because both the simple past and the present perfect have the same backshift -- the past perfect.

Henry often brought up problems that the boss had never thought of.

______

But aside from the subtleties mentioned above, keep in mind that, in general, the mixing of tenses does not really require exotic explanations. Take the example above:

I (have) never made that statement. It is a statement that I (have) never made.

The 'statement' can be spoken of in a timeless way with the present tense even if certain facts about the statement are expressed in the past. Similarly:

These are the very words he said: blah, blah, blah.

This is the book that I [ read / bought ] last month.

A scar is a trace of something that happened in the past.

Hamlet is a play which was written long ago.

These look like the results of the survey we did last year.

Re: Present perfect simple and past perfect simple

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:32:16 GMT

lemon
Hi, can someone please explain the difference between those two tenses and when I have to use which?
thx in advance!

Present perfect is used when some action happened in the past but result remains now, action completed in the recent past but result not finished yet,and
past perfect is used when any action happened before another past action.

Re: He said that the train had left before he arrived at the station.

Grammar Geek — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:14:08 GMT

We use things like past perfect to make it clear what happened before something else. When you have a very clear marker like the word "before" the use of the past perfect isn't as important.

A is fine and traditional.

B. This is fine too because it's reported speech, which pushes thing back a step in the tense sequence, so the "arrived" can become "had arrived."

C is also fine. It's clear the train left, and then he arrived, in that order, both in the past.

What would not be okay is to say that the train left before he had arrived. Although it's still clear what is meant, you don't use the past perfect for the more recent action and the simple past for the earlier action.

There's no difference between "he said" and "he says" regarding the rest of the sentence. The only difference is that you probably have the person on the phone relaying what he is saying when you say "he says" (or you're translating for someone who doesn't understand). With "he said" it can be just as immediate, or it could have been six months ago.