Grappling with the present perfect

Abstract

This article focuses on how learners can be helped to begin to understand the present perfect. In my experience the present perfect is particularly problematic for some L2 speakers of English because it is not exactly similar to how it is used in their mother tongue. The fact that it has a number of uses in English compounds the problem of understanding, but at the same time makes it a really useful form. In English the present perfect is a combination of the present tense and the perfect aspect and it can thus refer to events that happened in the past but which have present relevance. According to Parrot (2010: 235), ‘learners find it difficult to think of the present perfect as a form that can refer to present time in some contexts, and past time in others’. This problem is mostly due to the fact that in a number of other languages there is either no such form or else a similar form that has different meanings. For example, in spoken German and Italian the present perfect replaces the past simple form.