Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered9996  Hi all. I'm kinda ashamed to make such a question since I'm half American and half Italian, it took me lot of time to understand how to use in the affermative form the simple past or perfect past continuous (I think I understood the difference).
But how to use them in the interrogative form, I mean egg:
-Affermative: "I have seen this movie three times already this week" (past perfect continuos)
-Affermative: "I saw this movie last night" (simple past).
The problem is with the interrogative:
-Interrogative: "Did you see this movie already?" or should I say: "Have you seen this movie already?"
-Interrogative: "Did you see this movie already?" (simple past).
They say that you use did you + verb in American and have you + verb in English.
so let's guess I want to speak American there isn't difference even if the interrogative form is of the past perfect continuous? I use the interrogative form like that of the simple pas?
I'm glad to receive a question, thanks to all for the support. |
OK. There are some problems with your understanding of tenses here:
1) "I have seen this movie..." - PRESENT perfect
2) "I have been seeing this movie..." - Present perfect continuous
3) "I had seen this movie..." - Past perfect (pluperfect)
4) "I had been seeing this movie..." - Past perfect continuous
5) "I saw this movie..." - Past simple (imperfect)
6) "I did see this movie..." - Past simple (imperfect)
7) "I was seeing this movie..." - Past simple continuous
There are no tense differences between the affirmative and interrogative forms, and there are no tense differences between BrE and AmE.
The interrogative inverts the subject (or subject pronoun) in all cases, except that 5) cannot be used in the interrogative form.
Your question becomes whether simple past is more common in AmE than the present perfect in BrE when asking "Have you seen this movie already?"
My (BrE) answer is that "Did you see this movie already?" is grammatically wrong, because it demands the present perfect tense. Others will disagree...