17. Present Perfect Tense

The present perfect tense is a rather important tense in English, but if gives speakers of some languages a difficult. That s because it uses concepts or ideas that do not exist in those languages. In fact, the structure of the present perpect tense is very simple. The problems come with the use of the tense. In addition, there are some differences in usage between and American English.

How do we make the present perpect tense ?

The structure of the present tense is :

Subject + auxiliary verb have + main verb past participle

Here are some examples of the present perfect tense.
Subject Auxiliary verb Main verb
+ I Have Seen ET
+ You Have Eaten Mine
- She Have Not Been To Rome
- We Have Not Played Football
? Have You Finished
? Have They Done It ?

Contractions with the present perfect tense

When we use the present perfect tense in speaking we usually contract the subject and auxiliary verb. We also sometime do this when we write.
I have I’ve
You have You’ve
He has
She has
It has
Jhon has
The car has He’s
She’s
It’s
Jhon’s
The car’s
We have We’ve
They have They’ve

Here are some examples :
- I’ve finished my work
- Jhon’s seen ET
- They’ve gone home