Rough and Ready Guide to Simple Past and Present Perfect – Les Bons Mots

This post is designed to give you some easy to remember tools when it comes to using the Present Perfect Tense and the Simple Past, which are easily confused by many English language learners. We’ll break this down into

The Problem,
The Solution for the Simple Past,
The Solution for the Present Perfect, and
Some Basic Contexts for the Present Perfect.

Recognize the Problem: For English language learners whose dominant language is French, learning to master the Present Perfect and distinguish it from the Simple Past tense presents a particular difficulty due to the way the le passé composé works in French. That verb tense presents a trap for French speakers who are learning English! In French, le passé composé is mostly used for completed actions in the past. In English, we often use the Simple Past tense to talk about completed actions in the past. That’s simple enough, but le passé composé also uses the auxiliary verb ‘avoir,’ which is often translated as ‘to have.’ English uses the auxiliary verb ‘to have’ in a verb tense as well but, but the verb tense is the Present Perfect. And the Present Perfect is not used to describe actions completed in the past, it is used to describe things in the past that are still somehow relevant to the present moment.

And there’s the problem!

The French speaker finds it very tempting to say “I have eaten” when they want to say “J’ai mangé.”
To make it even more confusing, “I have eaten” is certainly grammatically correct and may not even sound wrong in the context of many English conversations.
Well, it won’t sound wrong until it really sounds wrong; it sounds great until it turns into a goofy mistake in certain select contexts.

And that’s confusing.

The solution is not complicated in theory but can be difficult to execute.

If you want to say the English equivalent of “J’ai mangé” you need to say “I ate.” Even Google Translate translates this sentence as “I have eaten,” but the more accurate translation in many contexts is going to be “I ate.”

Exercise: A useful practice might be to write several passé composé sentences in French using time words like hier, à 7 heures, or en 2009. Then translate them without using the ‘to have’ auxiliary verb.
Try, in other words, to practice using the simple past tense to translate finished past actions. By doing this exercise you’ll also get some practice with irregular verbs.

All simple enough when it comes to using the Simple Past, you say, but when do I use the Present Perfect? Try focusing on these two rough guidelines.

If you’re unsure if you should be using the Present Perfect or the Simple Past, and you’re in the middle of a conversation: go with the simple past. It’s your best bet.
Remember that the Present Perfect is for situations where something happened in the past, but it’s still relevant now.

“J’ai mangé” is “I ate.” But people say “I have eaten” all the time, often in a context where they are being offered food when they don’t need or want it. If someone offers you a muffin at an early morning meeting you don’t want because you ate a big breakfast an hour ago, you say “I have eaten already.”
This is the equivalent of saying “J’ai déjà mangé.’ You ate in the past but that action is relevant to the moment right now: the fact that you really don’t need that Costco muffin the size of your head.

4. Basic Contexts for the Present Perfect.

As I said in three, it’s likely strategic to retreat to the Simple Past when you’re just not sure; I often find that many written pieces by Anglophones are strengthened by using the Simple Past rather than the Present Perfect.

However, there are contexts where it’s useful to have the Present Perfect. Imagining these scenarios when you practice the verb tense can help you remember when it’s appropriate to reintroduce the auxiliary verb ‘to have’ and the Present Perfect as a result.

1. Job Interviews. For many English learners of Business English, this is the main context for the Present Perfect. You want to know a job candidate’s experience and how it relates to now. You want to tell an employer the software you’ve learned in the past and how that relates to the job you’re applying to right now. You want to explain why you poured coffee over your boss’s head ten years ago, and why that will not happen now if your new employer offers you a job.

Job interviews are all about the past and the now at the same time, so they tend to use the present perfect a lot.
Example: “I have never worked in a call centre, but I have worked in customer service before.” or “Yes, I’ve used that software extensively.”

1. First Dates and other Introductions. A first date is a kind of job interview, some have said. You need to tell your prospective partner that you have three kids that you share custody with your ex. You need to tell your partner that you tried sushi, but it always made you break out in an allergic reaction.

Example: “I have tried calamari more than once, but I’m afraid if our relationship is based on eating squid, we’re probably going nowhere as a couple.”

A conference happy hour, or a 5 à 7, is also a place where you’re likely to be giving people information about your past that is still relevant to right now:
Example: “I have lived in Montréal for two years.”

Note: “I lived in Montréal for two years” is in the simple past and thus suggests that you no longer live there, that that period of your life is complete, that you’ve moved on to Paris or Prague or Seattle. “I have lived in Montéal for two years,” in the Present Perfect, suggests you still live in Montréal and don’t have any immediate plans to move.

1. News: If you’re making an announcement in English, especially an announcement that relays information that happened recently, then you might want to use the Present Perfect. News journalists use the Present Perfect all the time, especially when announcing news that is ‘breaking,’ (still pretty new to common knowledge).
  
  Example: “Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, management has recently decided that all water fountains in the building will be closed.”

Note: Note how certain time words, recently in this example, often imply that the Present
Perfect Tense. Such time words also include: ‘already,’ ‘before,’ and ‘just.’
Final exercise: Watch the news in English, then watch a sitcom in English. Try to spot places where announcers and characters are using the simple past or the present perfect. Keep in mind that these rules are not strict; idiom dictates a lot about when and how these two verb tenses are employed.
As you get more advanced, you might try ‘spotting’ the verb tense in different genres.

Sitcoms will often use a combination of Simple Past, Simple Present, and Simple Future.
News shows will often use a combination of Present Perfect and Simple Past.
Mysteries, Horror, and some Science Fiction are the most likely to use Past Perfect as well as the
Simple Past and Present Perfect tenses.

by Nathan R. Elliott