Visual Guide To English Perfect Tenses - Past, Present And Future Perfect

Hello, and welcome to this month’s Grammar Focus lesson!

In this lesson, we go into depth about perfect tenses, such as the present perfect, past

perfect and the future perfect.

Anyone learning English will come across perfect tenses pretty soon in their studies, because

they are some of the most commonly used forms in English grammar.

But even after years of study, many students still have trouble with how and when to use

perfect tenses.

Examples of perfect tenses are sentences like, “How have you been?” or “We’ve lived

here for years,” or “She hadn’t heard that song before.”

You should watch through this lesson a couple of times to get a good idea of how perfect

tenses work, even if you’re already familiar with them.

Pay particular attention to the examples, and the patterns of the sentences, rather

than to the rules.

Have you got all that?

Great!

Let’s begin!

To start with, let’s clear up a potential source of confusion.

Why do we call these kinds of sentence a perfect tense?

What does it have to do with something being perfect, like in these situations?

It’s perfect weather to go for a swim.

Darling, tonight was the perfect night.

In bowling, a perfect game means a score of 300.

In normal, everyday English, perfect means “the best possible” or “really, really

good” or “very suitable.”

When we’re talking about perfect tenses, though, such as a present perfect or future

perfect, we mean something quite different.

You see, back in the old days, people studying the rules of grammar would use words from

the Latin language to name different parts of grammar.

So, the word perfect comes from the Latin word meaning completed.

So, in a way, perfect tenses are for talking about things that we see as completed by a

certain point in time.

Okay,, so what do we mean by that?

Here, Tom is doing some homework.

His mother could say: “Tom, can you walk the dog when you’ve

done your homework?”

When he completes his homework, then he’ll take the dog out.

We can see this chef has cooked a couple of nice meals.

That is, the cooking is complete, so now the meals are ready to serve.

And here, we see that this plane has just taken off.

That is to say, its takeoff is complete, and now the plane is in the air.

So, the action we describe with a perfect tense is an action that’s completed, and

now we’re looking at the result of that action.

We can also look at using perfect tenses another way.

We can think of them as looking back at something.

Check out the following examples:

Hannah is hiking somewhere.

She stops to look back.

She has walked several miles.

She has seen birds and wild animals

She has crossed rivers and she has climbed up and down hills.

She has been on the trail for hours.

There are two things to think about here.

One thing is that Hannah is looking back at what she has done, but the other important

thing is that Hannah is still walking.

That is, Hannah’s still on the trail when we say she has walked so far or has climbed

some hills.

So we use perfect tenses when we feel like there is a connection between two times, or

two actions.

How this works will be clearer when we look at some different perfect tenses, so let’s

first visit the present perfect.

It looks like this:

Let’s go.

Our train has arrived.

This is the third gallery we’ve been to this month.

It’s already 11 a.m. and they haven’t finished breakfast yet.

How many countries has Holly been to?

Has she visited Egypt?

We use have or has, often shortened to ‘ve or ‘s, and a past participle verb, like

eaten, drawn or done.

As you should probably be able to guess by the name, present perfect is a perfect tense,

so it talks about a connection between two times: a time in the past and now.

There are some different ways, however, to look at this connection.

One way is to talk about how some action is completed, but the effect of that action is

still important now:

Ah, I’ve run out of food.

(I’ll need to go shopping now.)

Henry’s injured his knee running.

(It still hurts a lot now.)

They’ve made it to the end of the course.

(They can take a rest now.)

Because we’re actually describing an effect in the present, if we wanted, we could use

a present simple sentence to talk about the same situation.

This means that how we talk about a situation depends on what we think is more important:

Ben has opened the roller gate.

(Focusing on the action) The roller gate is open now.

(Focusing on the result)

Barcelona’s famous Sagrada Familia church hasn’t been completely built yet.

(Focusing on the action) The church is still unfinished now.

(Focusing on the result)

Have you washed the clothes?

(Focusing on the action) Are the clothes clean now?

(Focusing on the result)

When we talk about news of recent events, whether it’s public news or personal news,

we feel that it’s important to us now.

So this connection between a past event and the present means we like to use present perfect

for news, too:

A concert stage has collapsed in the center of the city today.

There has been a major accident on the corner of Rochester Street and May Avenue.

Stock prices haven’t recovered yet.

Did you hear the news?

Betty and John have just got married!

(“Got” is used here, rather than “gotten,” because it sounds more conversational.)

When we do something a few times, but there’s a chance we could still do it again, then

we also talk about those repeated actions by using the present perfect:

Leah brought some books to read on her trip, and now she’s finished three of them already.

I’ve managed to answer 12 of the emails I received this morning.

How often have you eaten at this café?

In this case, we’ll often use words like sometimes, occasionally or often as well:

Cameron’s hiked in rough conditions pretty often, so he’s used to it.

I’ve sometimes thought it’d be nice to live in Greece.

Everyone’s occasionally had trouble with their computer, but hopefully not this bad!

Similarly, thinking about things that you’ve done in your life but you could possibly do

again – that is, because you’re still alive! – we’ll use present perfect because

we can connect those experiences in the past with you being here in the present:

I’ve tried sushi, but I didn’t really like it.

I haven’t actually met the Pope, but I’ve been to one of his speeches.

How many countries has Grace been to, do you think?

Actually, she’s travelled to more than 30!

And for experience, it’s common to use words like ever, never or before:

Jayden’s never flown in a plane before, so he’s quite excited.

They’ve seen this kind of problem before, so they know how to operate on it.

Have you ever been riding up here?

It’s beautiful– you should go.

Also, we talk about experiences by saying things like the first, the best, the longest

or the worst:

Have you ever been there?

They’ve got the best ribs I’ve ever had.

This was one of the worst storms the city’s had in years.

Is this the first time Jessica’s gone skiing?

Additionally, we use present perfect if we want to say how long a situation has gone

on for, from some time in the past up to now:

Nobody has used this building for years, so now they want to knock it down.

The Parthenon has stood on this hill near Athens for centuries.

How long have you lived here for, Granddad?

Now, because we use present perfect for the news, for something just finished that has

some visible effect or for a situation still going now, one thing that you might be asking

yourself now is, “Can we only use present perfect when something is recently finished?

Or for something still happening now?”

Actually, even if the event happened a long time ago, we use present perfect if we think

there’s some relevance or connection to now.

Again, a connection between two times is important:

Millions of years of erosion have shaped the Grand Canyon into its present form.

In cities around the world, Chinatowns have appeared where 19th century Chinese workers

migrated to.

Man landing on the Moon in 1969 has changed our view of our place in the universe.

Now that you have a solid understanding of the present perfect, let’s transfer these

same ideas to the past perfect and future perfect tenses.

They all basically work the same, but just with different points in time.

So, where we saw that present perfect is for looking at something connecting the past with

the present, we’ll use past perfect to talk about two points of time in the past:

The others had already started dinner by the time we got to the party.

The robbers had escaped long before the police arrived.

Before her café latte arrived, she hadn’t waited long.

Did you see how we connected the past simple with the past perfect?

And the great thing, is that the order in which you describe the two events doesn’t

matter.

The order of the events doesn’t change even though the orders of the parts of the sentence

do.

These different orders are used to control the way you reveal the information:

By the time we got to the party, the others had already started dinner.

The others started dinner first… …then we got to the party after that.

Long before the police arrived, the robbers had escaped.

The robbers escaped first… …then the police arrived later.

Jasmine hadn’t waited long before her café latte arrived.

Jasmine waited first, but not for long… …then her coffee came out next.

So, just like with the present perfect, we can use the past perfect to talk about things

like the effects of things, something that had repeated a number of times, experiences

or ongoing situations.

Let’s look at a few more quick examples to see these different meanings:

Candice was really hungry at lunch because she hadn’t had time to eat breakfast.

Cause: She had no time for breakfast earlier.

Effect: She was hungry at lunch later.

Before he started working here, William had applied to four other companies.

Repeated action: William applied to a number of companies.

Later event: He started work at this one.

I’d only seen giraffes on TV until I came to South Africa.

Earlier experience: I saw giraffes on TV.

Later event: I came to South Africa, and saw real giraffes.

Olivia finally saw the doctor, but she’d been a bit unwell for weeks beforehand.

Earlier ongoing situation: Olivia was a bit sick.

Later event: She saw the doctor.

However, there are a couple of things we can do that are special for the past perfect.

One special thing is to imagine things about the past that actually didn’t happen, by

using words like if, wish or suppose:

Jan might’ve been a professional artist if she’d gone to art school.

Ben wishes he hadn’t put all his savings in a bad investment.

Suppose you had gone to university like you planned.

Where would you be now?

Or, maybe we want to say that we were hoping something would happen, but it didn’t.

And listen to how we put some extra stress on the word had when we do this:

We had wanted to see the Renoir exhibit on our trip, but we ran out of time.

(We didn’t see it.)

Ethan had meant to save his work earlier, but he lost everything when his laptop crashed.

(He didn’t save it.)

We had hoped to say goodbye to Phil before he left.

(We didn’t say goodbye.)

Finally, let’s move on to describing the future.

How do you think we make sentences in future perfect?

The transportation department says they’ll have built the overpass by next year.

We’d better hurry!

We won’t have finished by the time the guests arrive.

Will anyone have read the whole textbook before the test?

That’s right– future perfect uses words like will have finished or won’t have seen.

You can probably try to think of ways to change the different present perfect examples we

saw before into future situations.

But generally, we just use the future perfect for one kind of situation.

Watch two more examples, and see if you can guess when we usually use it:

The team is working late, so they will have finished the project by Wednesday’s deadline.

At this rate, we will have completely destroyed all of the world’s rainforests by the end

of the century.

Here again, we go back to the basic meaning of a perfect situation, where we mean something

is finished or completed.

That means we’ll mainly use future perfect to talk about when we want something finished

in the future, or when we think something might be completed:

By the end of their anatomy course, these students will have learned all about the human

skeleton.

We need to wait until two hours before checking in.

The staff won’t have cleaned the room until then.

When will they have received more stocks of the new iPhone, do you know?

You might want to use future perfect sentences to tell your boss or your teacher when you’ll

have some work finished:

Sure thing boss, I’ll have written the report before you go on your trip.

Don’t worry mom, I’ll have tidied up my room before Aunt Joan gets here.

Excuse me, miss?

Can I get an extension?

I won’t have finished by tomorrow.

And, there you have it.

In a nutshell, that’s how perfect tenses work.

We’ve looked at present perfect, past perfect and future perfect.

If there’s anything you think you haven’t picked up on, you can play this video through

again and recheck it.

When you’ve done that, you will have taken another step towards complete English grammar

mastery!

To end, let’s listen to this retiree talk about his life and home.

Pay attention to which perfect tenses he uses and think about what they’re connecting

each time:

This is Ed.

He quit his job and he’s been retired for exactly one year.

We asked him what life’s been like in the past year.

Has he felt happy or bored?

Ed told us, “No, I haven’t been bored at all.

In fact, I’ve hardly had any time to be bored!”

That’s interesting.

What has Ed done to keep busy then?

He said, “Well, first off, I’ve read at least two books a month, and I’ve watched

all the films I’d wanted to see but never had the time.”

“My grandson has visited occasionally.

That’s Jason, and he’s just started high school.

He’s shown me how to use a smartphone and a tablet, which I hadn’t figured out before.”

“I’ve also started rebuilding the porch.

I had planned to finish it by last month, but we’ve had some heavy storms recently,

so I haven’t been able to get it painted.”

Ed continued, “And I’ve just taken up a new hobby– pottery!

I’ve made over a dozen pieces so far.”

It seems Ed is keeping busy!

What else does he want to do?

He replied, “Well, apart from reading, I love travel.

Before I retired, I’d been to over 20 countries in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas.”

“So, I’ve often thought about visiting Australia.

I’ve never been there.”

Ed said, “I’ve also bought a ticket for an Antarctic cruise.

I’ve heard that it’s very exciting!”

“So, by the time I get back, I’ll have walked on all seven continents.

Not too many people can say they’ve done that!”

Does Ed have any regrets then?

He answered, “Yes, maybe just one.

I wish I’d retired earlier!

I probably would have if I’d known it was this enjoyable.”

Interesting idea, Ed.

We hadn’t thought about that before.

Thanks for your time!

How did you do?

Could you guess why a perfect tense was used each time?

We’ll watch the interview again, and this time we’ve added a few extra words to explain

what kind of connection there is between different times or events for each perfect tense.

This is Ed.

He quit his job and he’s been in an ongoing state of retirement for exactly one year.

We asked him what the state of his life’s been like in the past year.

Has he felt happy or bored?

Ed told us, “No, I haven’t been bored at all.

In fact, I’ve hardly had any time to be bored!”

That’s interesting.

What repeated action has Ed done to keep busy then?

He said, “Well, first off, I’ve repeatedly read at least two books a month, and I’ve

repeatedly watched all the films I’d always wanted to see but been unable to because I

had never had the time before I retired.”

“My grandson has repeatedly visited occasionally.

That’s Jason, and his news is he’s just started high school.

He’s shown me how to use a smartphone and a tablet, with the result that now I know,

which I hadn’t figured out before he showed me.”

“Also, I’ve started rebuilding the porch, with the result that it’s partly rebuilt.

I had planned to finish it last month but didn’t complete my plan, but we’ve repeatedly

had some heavy storms recently, so I haven’t been able to get it painted so now it’s

unpainted.”

Ed continued, “And my personal news is I’ve just taken up a new hobby– pottery!

I’ve repeatedly made over a dozen pieces so far.”

It seems Ed is keeping busy!

What else does he want to do?

He replied, “Well, apart from reading, I love travel.

Before I retired, I’d had the experience of being to over 20 countries in Asia, Europe,

Africa and the Americas.”

“So, I’ve often repeatedly thought about visiting Australia.

I’ve never had the experience of being there.”

Ed said, “I’ve also bought a ticket, which is my news, for an Antarctic cruise.

I’ve heard, so now I believe, that it’s very exciting!”

“So, by the time I get back, I’ll have had the experience of walking on all seven

continents.

Not too many people can say they’ve had the experience of doing that!”

Does Ed have any regrets then?

He answered, “Yes, maybe just one.

I wish I’d retired earlier, which didn’t happen!

I probably would have if I’d known it was this enjoyable, which I didn’t know before.”

Interesting idea, Ed.

We hadn’t thought about that before you told us.

Thanks for your time!

Listen for these words in your daily life, keep practicing and have a great day!