By Writing letters, Past tenses

Thanks for your replying, but I have some questions about them: I have been writing letters all morning. This says what activity you were involved with all morning, that is, during the entire morning. It is still morning and you may still be writing letters or you may have decided to stop...

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...

I have some problems,they are the phrases about time: yet, today, so far, to date, up to now, recently, lately, up to these few days, this morning, now, up to present. what do they mean? Are some of them duration? Do some of them represent sometime/some time in the past? yet: 1.up to the...

Dear CalifJim, I'd like to clarify one point in your answer. You told me that in the PAST TENSE an adverbial of DURATION works more with the SIMPLE form of the verb, whether in the PRESENT TENSE it works better with the PROGRESSIVE form of the verb, is that so? ex1: We WATCHED tv ALL NIGHT. ...

The most natural are 1a, 2a, 3b, 4a, 5a. 2b is incorrect. An adverbial indicating a point in time ("when I was cutting onions") is incompatible with the perfect aspect. I've been cutting onions ("continuously until now" implied). That's why my eyes are red ("now" implied). I have cut the...