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I recently bought a book, and I´ve been studying tenses but I am getting confused with present perfect, present perfect continuous, past perfect and past perfect continuous, could you help me, please?.
We use present perfect tense when:
1. Things which have just happened.
She has just finished cooking.
2. Things that happened in the past where time is not mentioned (not necessarily mentioned)
I have seen her before.
3. Things that started in the past, and still happening until the moment I speak.
I've lived in Jakarta for more than twenty years.
Present Perfect Continuous:
Things that started in the past, and still happening until the moment I speak, but usually the length of the period is mentioned.
I've been tutoring for 3 years.
(Yes, it's almost the same with the 3rd example of Present Perfect Tense, live with it!)
Past Perfect Tense:
1. When two things happening in the past, where one thing happened before or after another.
The burglars had left before the police arrived.
After I had brushed my teeth I went to bed.
Before I went to school this morning, I had kissed my mom. (euh...)
The girl had been kidnapped when I got there.
2. In indirect or reported speech
Vincent's said he had done his homework.
Past Perfect Continuous Tense:
1. Something that had already happened in the past for a certain period of time when other thing happened in the past too, where the length of the period is usually mentioned.
The boys had been playing video games for 7 hours when their mother told them to stop.
2. Something that started in the past and ended in the past too (time is usually mentioned)
I had been living in Jakarta for 17 years before I moved to Bogor.
3. For indirect or reported speech for Present Perfect Continuous Tense.
Kevin said, "I've been studying for three whole hours."
Kevin said that he had been studying for three whole hours.
-=VGE=-
Last edited by Vincents_Genesius_Evans; 22-Aug-2005 at 19:45.
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