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Present Perfect Tense

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  Angbeen Chaudhary  —  Grammar Tips
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Are you aware of the term tense? It is a grammatical concept of English language that depends on the verb and decides the time of the action taking place.

In today’s article, I will throw light upon the general term tense and discuss in detail the present perfect tense of English language.

Tense

Tense is described as the quality of a verb which occurs in a sentence and which describes the time frame of the action taking place. In simpler terms, the occurrence of action of a sentence is depicted by the tense of that sentence.

Example:

He likes bananas.

In the above example, the verb likes indicates that the action is taking place right now and is not an event of the past or future, thus we know that the tense of this sentence is present.

The basic categorization of tense is that it can exist in three forms which are past, present and future. This means that a verb also comes in three forms i.e. past, present and future.

Present Tense

A verb is said to be in present tense when the action it is describing is taking place right now or in the present.

Example:

She sings well.

This example makes use of first form of verb i.e. sings and thus it indicates that the action is of present.

But is doesn’t end there. The present tense is further divided into different forms and types which include present indefinite tense, present continuous tense, present perfect tense and present perfect continuous tense.

Today I will talk about present perfect tense.

Present Perfect Tense

The present perfect tense is a little tricky as it indicates the action that happened or occurred in the past but is still continued in the present. Let’s say that something started happening in the past but is still happening now that is in the present.

Example:

He has done the work.

The above example indicates that the work was done in the past but is being talked about or presented in the present hence, present perfect tense is used.

The verb exists as present perfect when the third form is used and has or have is added before the verb.

Example:

They have eaten the pizza.

In this example we can see that the third form of verb eat i.e. eaten is used and have is used before it (as noun is plural) which makes the verb present perfect.

 

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