Prépa Sciences Po – Anglais – Fiche 3 : Present Perfect Tense

Professeur : Suzie Suriam FICHE III Present Perfect Tense: Simple Past vs Present Perfect vs Present Perfect Continuous Simple Past 1. The simple past is used to talk about completed actions in the past 2. The simple past is often used with expressions that refer to points of time in the past at 4 o'clock/the end of the year/Christmas ston Tuesday/March 17th /the 21 of December/New Year's Day in January/2007/the 1990s/the winter tomorrow/tomorrow morning/last Monday/next April/a few days ago/ no prepositions the day before yesterday/when I was younger Present perfect simple 3. The present perfect is used to talk about a situation resulting from something that happened at an unspecified time in the past. Therefore there is no need to use specific time expression such as yesterday, last week, etc. I have given your article about child labor to the publishing house. (I gave them your article, so they have it now.) 4. The present perfect is often used with the word just to talk about very recent actions. The exact time is not mentioned. They cannot meet Ms Bennett. She has just left. Notice the difference between have been and have gone I am afraid Ms. Bennett is not here at the moment. She has gone to a business meeting in Manhattan. (She is still at the meeting.) Jackie has been to the doctor. She has her prescription. (She went to the doctor and has returned.) 5.