THE PRESENT PERFECT TENSE
Rule: Subject + have/had + past participle + object
E.g : John has spoken English.
I have told you.
he present perfect tense is an English verb tense used for past actions that are related to or continue into the present. It’s easily recognized by the auxiliary verbs (or helper verbs) have and has, as in, “I have gone fishing since I was a child.”
Of all the English verb tenses, the present perfect is one of the most complicated because there’s not always a direct translation in other languages. So in this guide, we explain everything you need to know to use it perfectly, including how and when to use it, with plenty of present perfect tense examples.
The present perfect tense is one of the common verb tenses in English, used to show an action that happened in the past that is directly related to the present, such as actions that are still continuing or that indicate a change over time. We cover a complete list of when to use the present perfect tense below.
Don’t let the name confuse you—even though the word present is there, the present perfect tense deals with actions that happened or started in the past. In fact, the present perfect tense is often used interchangeably with the simple past tense, although there are some special situations in which you can only use one or the other, also explained below.
