The present perfect tense

In a nutshell

The present perfect is a verb tense used to talk about actions which happened either at an unspecified time in the past, or started at some point in the past and continue into the present. You can use this tense to talk about life experiences as well as ongoing, long term or unfinished actions. In this summary, you'll discover how to identify and use the present perfect.

Uses of the present perfect

The present perfect is used to describe actions which are unfinished, they began sometime in the past but continue into the present.

Example

Chris has lived in Leeds for ten years.

In example one the verb has lived in the present perfect tense tells us that this action continues into the present, meaning that Chris still lives in Leeds today. This is an example of an unfinished action. To compare, if the verb is changed into the past simple the meaning changes significantly.

Present perfect	past simple
Chris *has lived* in Leeds for ten years.	Chris *lived* in Leeds for ten years.

Changing the verb into the past simple tense tells us that the action is finished or completed; Chris no longer lives in Leeds.

For and since

Present perfect verbs are often followed by for or since in order to define a period of time that something has been happening for.

Examples

He has played the piano since she was five.
They have known Martina for a few months.
Lisa has known about that since yesterday.

Unfinished time

You can often spot sentences in the present perfect tense as they refer to periods of time which are unfinished, for example this year, this week, today. Other time expressions such as already and yet are also used with the present perfect.

Examples

I haven't seen him today.
Loren has gone on holiday this year.
Have you been to the office this month?
Reena hasn't seen the big surprise yet.
Gary has already read that book.

Life experiences

Life is by definition an unfinished time period so the present perfect is used to talk about one's experiences in life up until the present. In these types of phrases you'll often see the words ever and never used.

Examples

I have never visited France.
Have you ever flown a kite?
Mo has seen all of those movies before.

Forming the present perfect

The present perfect is formed by a subject, the present tense of the verb to have, (have or has) and a past participle.

Subject	Have/has	Past participle
I, you, we, they	have	walked, talked, been, done, taken, seen, made
He, she, it	has	walked, talked, been, done, taken, seen, made

The past participle of a lot of verbs is the same as their past simple form (ending in -ed). For example, walked, lived, or talked. However, there are a lot of verbs with irregular past participles which you just have to learn but most of them end in either -n, -en, or -ne. You can see some examples of these alongside their infinitive forms in the table below.

to be	to go	to see	to make	to have	To eat	To write	To do	To know	To come
been	gone	seen	made	had	eaten	written	done	known	come

Tip: The present perfect often appears in its contracted or shortened form, I've, you've, he's, she's, it's, we've, they've.