GIVE ANSWERS - English

This is a great question. In many cases, they are both equally acceptable and have identical meanings. The substantive difference is present perfect describes an event that began in the past and continues to the present day.

For example, if I say ”I knew about Spanish-American war”, you are indicating that at some point in the past, you had knowledge of the war. It is possible you have forgotten it.

But if you say ”I’ve known about the Spanish-American war” that means you knew about it in the past and you continue to carry that knowledge to the present day.

Ummmm no, present perfect and past simple do *not* have ”identical meanings”.

The essential difference between present perfect tense forms and past perfect tense forms:

- present perfect tense for things that commenced in the past which are completed and which are *relevant*/*important* for the present point in time,

e.g. ”I have learned about the Spanish-American War at university.”

You are having a discussion about America’s rise as a world power at the end of the 19th century and you wish to show you know something relevant/important about this topic - this war in 1898 = the real start for America’s imperial rise.

The specific verb tense here is present perfect simple. The time of completion could be in the past or at the present point of time (it’s also possible to have the time of completion in the future, but don’t try this unless you know what you are doing if using present perfect simple!).

- past simple tenses for events that begin and finish in the past but which are a secondary fact/unimportant information,

e.g., ”I learned about the Spanish-American War at university.”

The specific verb tense here is past simple.

It might be part of a conversation like this:

”I learned about the Spanish-American War at university. I think there was also something about Munroe doctrine. Was that before or after, I forget. Yea, that Prof Stein was boring.”

The conversation you really want to have is about boring Prof Stein, not the Spanish-American War. The contents of a lecture about the Spanish-American War is secondary/unimportant information for you.

If we want to emphasise the continuity of an event important/relevant to us, then we use a continuous tense form, the present perfect continuous,

e.g., ”It has been raining for 3 days.”

You need to know if there is flooding or not and you have to travel somewhere. The action of raining is very important to you here! However, we don’t know from this sentence if the rain stopped at some point in the past, it stops at the present point in time or continues to rain in the future. We only know that there was a start in the past.

For events which continue into the future, we almost always use present perfect continuous rather than present perfect simple.

For expressing the continuity of a secondary event/ not so important information in the past, then past simple continuous,

e.g., ”It was raining.”

Rainfall is of secondary interest to us here. Perhaps you were watching TV and there was rain which didn’t affect you watching TV. The process of rain started and finished in the past. We simply mentioned it perhaps to keep the conversation going. If we want to say that the rainfall continues into the present point of time then we use the present simple continuous tense.

Also, British English speakers tend to use perfect tenses much more often than American English ones.

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