Subjects from Class 1

Sometimes, subjects of general interest will come up in class and we find a novel way of harmonizing the information so that we all can speak a common language.  This series of posts will deal with these rich and varied topics.

Take a look under this picture for a short, schematic explanation of the topic of our conversation, and how the students came to understand it in order to use it on their own...without me!

Present Perfect:  How to Use the Simple and How to Use the Continuous/Progressive

The office is a new color: 
“Oh, you’ve painted!”

The office is two colors and I have paint all over my hair and clothes: 
“Oh, you’ve been painting!”

Yes, we do use both of these forms.  

• Present perfect simple, in this case, is to indicate news or a past action with consequences in the present.  
• Present perfect continuous is to indicate the “constant continuity” of an action, or the fact that an action has been started and is still continuing.  Another example is, “We have been studying English together for over a year now.”  

As always, look for your markers (see chart with an abridged list below and separate blog post) to point you toward the present perfect or the simple past:

			Present Perfect		Simple Past
			for		when
			since		then
			yet		ago
			already		while
			up to now		yesterday
			until now		last (week…)
			recently		this morning

With the present perfect continuous/progressive, you should be able to look for markers as well, though they may be different from those from the present perfect simple.

Present Perfect Markers

constantly

consistently

recently

steadily

these past few days

Please note that the differences between the present perfect simple and present perfect continuous are often (though not all the time) much less cut and dried than with other tenses.  You will often be able to subsitute one for the other, and it depends on your -- the author's -- use of semantics (see separate blog post) and the meaning that you choose to give.  These two sentences mean just about the same thing:

Prices have risen over the past two months.

Prices have been rising over the past two months.

The first states a fact and provides the reader with concrete information.  The second one does the same, but injects the idea of consistency or continuity as well as the factual information.

Look at the exercises below.  Which tense -- present perfect simple or present perfect continuous/progressive -- is more appropriate for the example?  Could you actually use both in the same example?