Past simple or present perfect?

If you ask a group of people what the most difficult thing is about learning English, it's likely they'll say the ridiculous spelling, the mad pronunciation or...the difference between the past simple and present perfect. I've written blogs about spelling and pronunciation in the past, but my latest blog examines the difference between the past simple and present perfect.

𝗜𝗻 𝗮 𝗻𝘂𝘁𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗹

- If something is completely finished and can never happen again, it’s in the past simple.

- If something is in some way unfinished in the present or can happen again in the future, it’s the present perfect.

𝗟𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹.

𝙋𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙨𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚

All of the following sentences use the past simple, because the fact or the action they're describing is completely finished.

- “I knew Anna for 5 years”. This sentence shows that I don’t know Anna now – I knew her in the past.

- “My grandma lived in Southend when she was a teenager”. My grandma can never be a teenager again, so this is completely in the past.

- “I lost my purse yesterday, but then I found it under my chair”. In this sentence, something happened in the past and it was also resolved in the past.

- “I ate three mince pies last night”. ‘Last night’ is a completely finished time.

𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙋𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙚𝙘𝙩

In contrast, all of the following sentences use the present perfect, because the fact or action is still in some way unfinished in the present.

- "I have known Anna for 5 years". Using the present perfect here shows that I knew Anna in the past, but I also still know her now.

- "My grandma has been to Southend five times". Here, the present perfect shows that my grandma went to Southend in the past, but she is still alive and so can still go there again.

- "I’ve lost my purse and need to cancel all of my cards". This means I lost my purse in the past, but it is also still lost, and I still need to cancel my cards.

- "I’ve eaten three mince pies this month". Although I ate the mince pies already, I am still in a present timeframe - 'this month'. Other examples are 'this morning', 'today' and 'this year'.

If you’d like more practise on this, I suggest some excellent online exercises from Perfect English Grammar.

You can also find the difference between the past simple and present perfect described in a table format (used as a basis for this blog).

I hope this helps to make things a bit clearer. Let me know in the comments below!