What makes a tense perfect

Try an exercise about the positive form here. Negative Negative Short Form I have not eaten breakfast today I haven't eaten you have not been to Asia you haven't been he has not seen the new film he hasn't seen she has not played tennis she hasn't played it has not snowed this winter it hasn't snowed we have not slept all night we haven't slept they have not tried the food they haven't tried.

Try an exercise about the negative form here. Click here for a list of all the present perfect exercises Need more practice? The three main perfect tenses are past perfect, present perfect, and future perfect, but the perfect tense also has its own progressive forms. What is the past perfect tense? The past perfect most often expresses actions in the past that finished before another action also in the past started. What is the present perfect tense?

Th e present perfect tense expresses actions that happened at time that is not specific and actions that started in the past but continue to the present. What is the future perfect tense? The future perfect tense expresses actions that will be finished at some point in the future. You should also use the present perfect to refer to a repeated action in the past. You can also use the present perfect to describe an action that did not happen, using the adverb never.

The adverbs never, already, yet and so far are common in the present perfect. Adverbs are often the best indicators of which verb tense to use. Now let us look at the past perfect. The past perfect describes an activity that was finished before another event in the past. To form the past perfect, use had followed by a past participle verb. For the second action, use before or by the time followed by the simple past verb. You can use the past perfect to talk about how an experience from the distant past relates to an experience from the more recent past.

If the time relationship is clear, you can choose between the past perfect and the simple past. Let us move on to the future perfect.

Use the future perfect when you know that one future action will be completed before another future action. The future perfect has very limited use because we rarely know a future sequence of events with any certainty. When it is used, the future perfect usually refers to major life events that are planned years in advance.

And those are the three perfect tenses. Join us next week on Everyday Grammar for an explanation of the perfect progressive tenses.

Adam Brock wrote this story for Learning English. Jill Robbins and Kathleen Struck were the editors. Newest Newest Oldest See comments 25 This forum has been closed.