Language Practice

Pre-intermediate

Grammar reference    Basic 09 Family

Present perfect or past simple?
We use the present perfect and the past simple to talk about the past.
Present perfect Past simple
The Coppola family has had a big Francis Ford Coppola made
influence on popular culture. The Godfather in 1972.
Sofia Coppola has directed
In 2011, Sofia married Thomas Mars.
several films.
When do we use each tense?
Present perfect Past simple
We use the present perfect to
We use the past simple to talk
give general information about
about past events when the time is
past actions when the time is not
mentioned or understood.
mentioned.
Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal acted
Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal have
together in Donnie Darko in 2001.
appeared in a lot of films.
... but then we use the past simple
We often use the present perfect
(and other narrative tenses) to ask
to announce news and other
and talk about the details.
information ...
Where was he? What was he
I’ve just seen Brad Pitt!
doing? Did he speak to you?

Time expressions
We often use these time expressions with the present perfect:
Have you ever read The Dark Knight?
I’ve never seen Donnie Darko.
We’ve just bought tickets for the Nora Jones concert!
You’ve already told me about that.
Have you heard her new single yet?
How many times have you been to the cinema this year?
She’s watched all Jake Gyllenhaal’s films so far.
We often use time expressions like these with the past simple:
I bought the tickets yesterday.
We saw the new Batman film last week.
Toy Story 3 was released in 2010.
Uday Shankar lived from 1900 until 1977.
On Saturday Rob took Marie to the cinema.

Present perfect with since and for

We use the present perfect with since and for to talk about something that started in the past and is still true now.
We use since with a point in time.
I’ve lived in Berlin since 2012.
They’ve been here since seven o’clock.
We’ve known each other since we were ten years old.
We use for with a period of time.
I’ve lived in Berlin for three years.
I’ve worked here for ages.
I haven’t seen Ellie for two weeks.