Present Perfect
(Video explicativo)
Dear students, it’s time to learn a new and interesting tense. Look at the following
sentences and questions.
• I have surfed several times.
• I have visited a lot of countries.
• I have never met someone famous, or I haven’t met someone famous.
• I have talked to a famous singer once.
• I have ridden my brother’s motorcycle several times.
• Have you ever gone surfing?
• Have you ever ridden a motorcycle?
• Have you ever talked to someone famous?
All of these are Present Perfect sentences and questions. Let’s study this new tense.
When do we use the present perfect? We use it to describe past actions without
specifying when they happened. For example, “I have surfed several times” or “I have
visited a lot of countries”.
How do we form it? Now, look at the formation of the present perfect: We use auxiliary:
have or has + past participle form of the verb. We use auxiliary “have” with I, you, we,
they, and auxiliary “has” with he, she, and it.
And What is a past participle? To form the present perfect tense, we use the verb in the
past participle form. There are two ways to form the past participle:
• For regular verbs, you need the “ed” ending to form the past participle. The past
tense is the same as the past participle. For example, visit – visited, cook – cooked,
play – played, fail – failed.
• For irregular verbs, you need to memorize the past participle form. Usually, the
past tense is different from the past participle. For example, be –been, see-seen,
have - had, win-won, eat -eaten, go - gone.
Here we have some examples of the present perfect in Affirmative sentences (have or
has + past participle):
• He has surfed several times.
• Ted and Beth have visited a lot of countries.
• We have talked to a famous singer once.
• I have ridden my brother’s motorcycle several times.
And here we have some examples of the present perfect in Negative sentences (have or
has + not = haven’t or hasn’t + past participle):
• I haven’t met a famous writer in my life.
• She hasn’t eaten Japanese food.
• They haven’t had a difficult test.
• Tom hasn’t talked to someone famous
To form Yes-No questions in present perfect, we follow this structure: Questions (Have
or Has + subject + ever + past participle … ?). For example, “Have you ever gone surfing?”.
This question can be answered in affirmative or negative form. The affirmative answer is:
“Yes, I have. I’ve gone surfing several times”. And the negative answer is: “No, I have
never gone surfing”.
Here we have more examples:
• Have they ever ridden a motorcycle? Yes, they have ridden a motorcycle twice.
No, they have never ridden a motorcycle.
• Has she ever eaten Japanese food? Yes, she has eaten Japanese food once. No,
she hasn’t eaten Japanese food.
Note: We can use contractions in the Present Perfect Tense, too:
• “I have ridden my brother’s motorcycle several times” or “I’ve ridden my brother’s
motorcycle several times”.
• “She has eaten Japanese food once” or “She’s eaten Japanese food once”.
• “I have not been to another country” or “I haven’t been to another country”.
• “She has not talked to someone famous” or “She hasn’t talked to someone
famous”.
That’s all! See you in the next video. Happy learning!
