In Present perfect^x, Past tenses^x, English grammar^x

Yankee wrote:Hi TamI certainly did not intend my comment as a comparison of formal written UK English and informal US spoken English. I have to say I find it insulting that you think I would even consider making such a comparison. My comment was based on my own experience with British...

Hi Int, here are my examples of simple past tense "have" When I was a child I have so many toys. You are not forming the past tense correctly here. I had / you had / he, she, it had / we had / they had I have been in New York last year. What you are using here is Present Perfect tense,...

CalifJim has written an excellent summary here. May I just add a couple of observations of my own. CalifJim wrote:You may be driving yourself crazy trying to make every sentence with a present perfect tense fit into one those three categories! I have written six letters this morning.This...

1. Brenda left. That's a simple past tense. If anything happened BEFORE that time, you would then use the past perfect. No need for it here. 2. You FOUND out. That already implies the past. Any action taking place BEFORE the time you found out will make use of the past perfect. In this case...

Hi guys, I've heard of a new point of view of the term "tense". Some people say there're only 2 kinds of tenses in modern English grammar: Present and past tense. It's something odd to me because I've been taught that there're 12 tenses in English (Present simple, Present continuous, Present...

Hi! I ran into this problem. I am in doubt whether to use "We have just received" or "We just received". I'm not so good at English grammar. Also (off topic) is it correct to say "Thanks very much for your message" or should I use "Many thanks for your message" instead? Thanks in advance...

Susan, I understand the frustration you are feeling. Your language, Chinese, is what linguists call an "isolating language". All information, such as the time an action occurred, is conveyed by the choice and order of words in a sentence. There are no verb tenses. There are no plurals. In fact,...