been+last year

"But you know, just to play the devil's advocate, why do I care if somebody knows that I 've been to San Francisco three times last year?"

Would this be one of those sentences where descriptive grammar is used?

I don't understand your question.

I'm with 5jj as far as understanding your question.
The sentence can be made grammatical by inserting the words "in the" before "last year".

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Originally Posted by iannou

I'm with 5jj as far as understanding your question.
The sentence can be made grammatical by inserting the words "in the" before "last year".

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Yes, or changing "have been to" to "went to".

To ostap. And descriptive grammar isn't something one uses to construct sentences.

I was going to ask you if that would be one of those mistakes sometimes made in informal conversation?

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Originally Posted by ostap77

I was going to ask you if that would be one of those mistakes sometimes made in informal conversation?

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Yes. I don't think I would bat an eye at it.

Most speakers of BrE wouldn't bat an eyelid.

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Originally Posted by ostap77

"But you know, just to play the devil's advocate, why do I care if somebody knows that I 've been to San Francisco three times last year?"

Would this be one of those sentences where descriptive grammar is used?

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Only if you could establish it as a pattern. It wouldn't sound odd in speech, but that doesn't mean is part of descriptive grammar.

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Originally Posted by Tdol

Only if you could establish it as a pattern. It wouldn't sound odd in speech, but that doesn't mean is part of descriptive grammar.

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I guess I'm in the minority, but it does sound odd, erroneous, to me. I would mentally file this as "doesn't know appropriate use of perfect tenses." I certainly wouldn't let this pass if it came out of the mouth of an IELTS/TOEFL student.

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Originally Posted by iannou

I guess I'm in the minority, but it does sound odd, erroneous, to me. I would mentally file this as "doesn't know appropriate use of perfect tenses." I certainly wouldn't let this pass if it came out of the mouth of an IELTS/TOEFL student.

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Probably no teacher would. However, this type of thing is commonly heard from native speakers (though much less often seen in writing).

What seems to happen is that speakers conflate two idea in their head, in this case, "I've been to San Francisco three times" and "I went to San Francisco three times last year".

If we are honest, we have to admit that such things are said, even if we have to warn learners that they should not say/write them.

Another common 'mistake', though not one caused by conflation, is if I'd've + third form (past participle). Common sense and logic tell us that there is no such form in English, and all grammar and style books tell us it's wrong. But, it's very commonly heard, even from reasonably well-educated speakers. Those whose education is not so advanced often find it hard to accept that it's wrong - they hear it so often. I suspect that a true descriptive grammarian encountering spoken English for the first time would record it as an accepted tense form.