The simple perfect tense is one of the most important tenses in the English language. Language learners must be familiar with and understand it. This tense is the link between the present and the past. Confuse Simple with the past tense, but of course there is a big and clear difference between the two, and in this article we will explain to you the simple present perfect tense in English in detail with plenty of examples as a set of answer exercises for training and testing.
present perfect tense
The present perfect simple tense is one of the tenses used to show the connection between the present and the past, there is more than one use of this tense, and there are some words for it, which we will mention below.
In the simple perfect tense, we refer specifically to an event that happened in the past, but do not mention the specific time of this event, unlike the simple past tense, where we refer to the specific time past when the event happened.
Simple forms of the present perfect tense
As for the composition of the present perfect tense, it is generally composed as follows:
• Subject + Auxiliary Verb (Has/Have) + Third Conjugated Verb + Object.
Verbs in the third conjugation are not always regular. Some, like second conjugations, just add ed to the end of the verb, while others have specific forms that you can just memorize. The following table shows the formation of this tense in a simple way:
| Purpose | third conjugation of verbs | auxiliary verb | theme |
| football | played | have | he she it any singular noun |
| dinner | eat | have | them you I us any plural noun |
For the sake of simplicity, we can say that if the subject is singular, use the auxiliary verb has, and if the subject is plural, use the auxiliary verb. Here are a few examples of simple perfect tenses:
✔ mohammed and his wife visited mexico last year
✔ Mohammed and his wife visited Mexico last year.
✔ You’ve seen that movie several times
I have seen this movie many times ✔
✔ he finished his homework
✔ He has finished his homework.
Formation of the Present Perfect Tense: Negative Cases
The previous form is the simple form of the present perfect tense, the form in the affirmative case, and if we want to form the tense in the negative case, we will use the same previous form and add the not to auxiliary verb for whom, so the formation is as follows :
• In case of singular subject: subject + (have + not) + verb in third conjugation + rest of sentence
• In the case of plural subjects: subject + (have + not) + verb in third conjugation + rest of sentence
example:
✔ Mohammed and his wife have not been to Mexico in the last year
✔ Mohammed and his wife did not visit Mexico last year.
✔ Ahmed hasn’t finished his homework yet
✔ Ahmed didn’t finish his homework.
Formation of the Present Perfect Tense: Problem Cases
As for the formation of the present perfect tense in interrogative sentences, there are two kinds of interrogative sentences, each with its own marks, such as:
1. Ask yes/no
This type of question is what we actually ask and the answer is yes/no, here is how the present perfect tense is constructed in the case of yes/no questions:
• Subject singular case: Has + subject + verb in third conjugation + rest of sentence + ?
• In case of plural subjects: Have + subject + verb in third conjugation + rest of sentence + ?
2. Wh-Question
This is the second question form that we ask using an interrogative tool, we call it Wh-Questions, here is the present perfect tense using Wh-Questions in questions:
• Singular subject case: interrogative article + has + subject + third deconjugated verb + rest of sentence + ?
• Plural subject case: interrogative article + have + subject + deconjugated verb + rest of sentence + ?
Usage of simple present perfect tense
In this tense, we are referring to an event in the past, but its results or effects are still present in the present. This tense covers a lot of usages. Here are the most important usages of the simple perfect tense:
1. Refers to events that started in the past but continued into the present, such as:
Marwa has lived in Rome since 2010 and she still lives there
Marwa has lived in Rome since 2010, where she still lives
2. Express a person’s current occupation or job, for example:
✔ My dad has practiced medicine for three years and is still a doctor
✔ My dad has been practicing medicine for three years and is still a doctor
3. Indicates an event that happened in the past without mentioning a specific time. Where past times are specified, we use the past simple, for example:
✔ brother bought a car
✔ brother bought a car
✔ My brother bought a car yesterday
✔ My younger brother bought a car yesterday, and when he said it hadn’t expired
4. Indicates a time that has not yet ended, for example:
✔ I haven’t seen my mom since the morning, but maybe I’ll see her in the evening because the day isn’t over yet
✔ I haven’t seen my mom since the morning, but maybe I’ll see her in the evening because the day isn’t over yet
words that express the present perfect tense
Each tense has many semantic words that may refer to it, but as we pointed out before, these words are not necessarily as long as they are available, because they refer to this time explicitly, so their use may be appropriate to the context or not. Many meanings, here are the most important words for the present perfect tense:
• Already = Already
• just = immediately
• most recent = most recent
• However = after
• Since-For = because
• never = never
simple present perfect tense exercises
Here are some questions and exercises on the simple present perfect that can be used to check that you understand and understand the rules correctly, and you’ll find an appendix below the answers to correct yourself:
1. ———— Have you finished your work yet? not yet. I will finish it tomorrow.
A. have
B. have
C. have done
2. Salwa ———- was a lot last year, but she ———- is a lot this month.
A. Not earned/earned
B. Earned/Not Earned
C. Did not earn/earned
3. ———–Is there a holiday recently?
A. Have you eaten?
B. have you
C. have you
4. Ahmed and his wife ———— last week. They ———- stayed here for 7 days.
A. Already/arrived
B.arrived/already
C.arrived/already
5. My father is a key figure in this company, he has been working here for 15 years.
A. have worked
B. works
C. Already working
Answer:
1.B.
2.A.
3.A.
4.B.
5.C.
