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- Oct 14, 2010
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In another thread, engee30 and I were discussing sentences such as: Have you ever been backpacking? Have you ever been to Japan?
Here are a couple of the points we made:
engee30: The verb is not be, but go - and its past participle form in this case is been.
5jj: The past participle form of GO is never been.
Engee30: NOTE: Been is the past participle of be: I've never been seriously ill. It is also the past participle of go: I've never been to London. Gone is also a past participle of go: They've been to the cinema means that they went but they have now returned. They've gone to the cinema means that they went and are still there now. - [FONT="](c) Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary[/FONT]
5jj: This is one of those rare occasions when I think the OALD is wrong. This is, in my opinion, an idiomatic use of the perfect tense of BE. To call been (+ to) a past participle of GO with the meaning of 'gone to and returned from' is stretching things a little.
I'd be interested to hear what others have to say on this.