GIVE ANSWERS - English

It’s true that you are more likely to use simple past for a time marker like ”yesterday or ”two years ago” because with time markers you are more likely to be reporting facts from the past rather than events which are important in the context of the present time.

So, occasionally, in poorly formulated English courses at an A2/B1 level, you might see grammar rules like ”you use simple past with word like ’yesterday’”. One reason for this is that it is probably true, perhaps, 85% of the time. So a student applying this rule is going to get it right 85% of the time. That might be OK for a student at a B1 level. Another reason is at it’s easier to teach simple rules like that one than principles such as ”present perfect tenses are used for events which are important/relevant to the present point of time” because these require context rather than a simple right/wrong answer from simple grammar exercises. Furthermore, they do not match how *real* native speakers of English actually use this grammar.

Unfortunately, once you get to a high B2 or C1, then many of the grammar rules you have been learning previously are often simply wrong - especially when used productively in writing and speaking and require context as to which one you use.

I have been teaching for many years and one of the big problems is that students learn grammar rules as if they are like natural laws from physics. They are not laws of nature but a model for using language.

One of the first things that happens with many students at a B2/C1 level is that they learn ”how to break grammar rules”. In other words they learn that some of the grammar models they are familiar with don’t cover all cases. For example, students are shocked to discover that present simple continuous can be used to describe repeated events!

It’s also the case with using present perfect in English. I’ve seen all sorts of nonsense rules for present perfect simple/continuous from students I’ve encountered at B2 and C1. They have never really learnt how it is actually used in contexts. In general, most students learn grammar from 1 or 2-sentence exercises without too much written and spoken context.

Where have you got your rules about use of present perfect tenses from? From your response of ”doesn’t sound correct to me” I’m guessing you English level is perhaps somewhere in upper B2/C1 and that your communication has primarily been with non-native speakers or native speakers with a real language level of about B2 (not every native speaker would score a Grade A on a Cambridge C2 Proficiency test!!!).

No, we use present perfect continuous to emphasise the relevance of the continuity of the action at the present point of time. Present perfect simple is used to emphasise the relevance of the action as a whole. It does not matter if the action finishes in the past, at the present point in time or even in the future!

So, you see poorly formulated grammar rules stating things like ”Present Perfect Simple you are focusing on the result of the action expressed by the verb, while when you use the Present Perfect Continuous you are focusing on the ongoing action”. Certainly true in some cases, but definitely not in all.

Take for example, the sentence:

It has been raining yesterday. Now there are floods.

The action of rain DOES NOT continue into the present point of time - it occurred yesterday! However, the continuity of the action, falling rain, is important to the effect we observe presently - floods.

If you were to write something like

”It was raining yesterday. Now there are floods.”

and your intention was to link the rain from yesterday as being the cause of the floods now, then that would be a grammatical mistake! You are simply stating two facts, continuous rain yesterday and flooding now, without giving the relationship between them. Using present perfect to describe the rain links them.

By the way, I’m a native speaker of English and have been teaching both academic English and English as a second language for a very long time at universities.

Many American English speakers, but not all, have difficulty in differentiating when to use present perfect and simple past tense forms. Also, the frequency and how perfect tenses get used vary among American English speakers. So you will often hear opinions from different American English speakers which might be relevant to their particular local dialect of American English but not elsewhere.

Oh, thank you