I have learned a little Spanish, but I haven't studied it.

[Kolridg]

In my understanding it is reasonable that 5jj uses the simple past tense in his sentence quoted below (because he doesn't learn Latin now, he describes what he did at some period in the past). And I can't understand why Tarheel puts his sentence using the present perfect. If he says "but I haven't studied much" and the other part of his sentence is not in progressive form, which means that he doesn't learn it now, then why all his sentence hasn't been put in the simple past? I first thought that this might be a matter of style, but I checked and Tarheel turned out to be an American native speaker as said in his profile, and they prefer simple past more often than British speakers, so I am even double surprised to see that he uses the present perfect in his sentence.

https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/...t-perfect-and-progressive.287090/post-1692622

5jj's example:
I studied Latin for ten years, but never learnt much.

Tarheel's example:
I have learned a little Spanish, but I haven't studied it.

 

[Skrej]

You'd have to ask them why, but I doubt you're going to get the answer you seem to be looking for - a premeditated grammatical choice. Simple answer, they did because they could.

5jj's response implies that he probably has no intent of furthering his Latin knowledge. With it firmly in the past, there's no connection to the present to allow for continuation.

Tarheel's allows for the possibility of expanding his Spanish, even it it's not very likely. The perfect tense connection from past to present allows a continuation.

I seriously doubt if either of them consciously made that decision, however. You state you're a native Russian speaker. Do you consciously deliberate grammar before you utter a sentence in Russian? No native speaker of any language does.

Does Russian not allow for the flexibility of tenses to the same extent as English? I'd think it would. I don't know if it's just a coincidence, or some aspect of Russian grammar, but I've noticed we have several Russian native speaker members who seem to fixate on tenses more than any other aspect of English grammar.

 

[Kolridg]

Does Russian not allow for the flexibility of tenses to the same extent as English? I'd think it would. I don't know if it's just a coincidence, or some aspect of Russian grammar, but I've noticed we have several Russian native speaker members who seem to fixate on tenses more than any other aspect of English grammar.

Not a coincidence, and compared to English we have much less number of tenses in terms of grammar and can often understand time nuances only by meaning of the context. The second hard part of English for all Russian speakers is the fact that English consists of tremendous number of words, then again we just don't have them in so much amount. So these two aspects of English can quite drive crazy learner sometimes or even pretty often, I need to say.