Language/English/Grammar/Perfect-Tenses
The term ”perfect tense” for English verb tenses is unfortunate and misleading. This term was derived via Latin and used because the syntactical forms of ”perfect tenses” in English have their analogues in Latin perfect tense forms. However, grammatical function differs significantly. This is in contrast to ”le parfait” in French which is closer in its grammatical function to its Latin equivalent form.
To give a basic example, in English - of when present perfect simple describes an event that starts in the past, continues to the present and even on into the future - then consider the sentence:
”I have been at home for 3 weeks.”
In this case,
Start of being at home = 3 weeks ago. Am I at home right now? Yes. Will I still be at home tomorrow? Very highly likely (but I could leave home right now).
Surprisingly, for a completed so-called ”perfect” event, when it starts and finishes in the past and is of specific duration, the most common tense form is simple past!
”I was at home for 3 weeks.”
The 3 perfect tenses in English show actions already completed. The word perfect literally means "completely done".
They are formed as followed:
to have (with the appropriate tense) + the past participle of the verb.
Present Perfect
I have eaten.
Past Perfect
I had eaten.
Future Perfect
I will have eaten.