LL-L "Grammar" 2005.03.05 (05) [E]

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From: Roger Hondshoven <roger.hondshoven at pandora.be>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.03.01 (01) [D/E]

Gary Taylor wrote:>
>> Putting my teacher's hat on... Ingmar, you were asking about the
difference
> between the present perfect 'I have been...' and the past simple 'I
was...'
>
> The present perfect always has something loosely to do with the present,
> which is where it gets its name. It's used for:
>
> Things which started in the past and have continued till the present:
'I've
> lived in Berlin for 4 years'
> (I'm still here)
>
> Experiences (It's an experience from my life that I now have): 'I've been
to
> France'
>
> With certain words such as 'already', 'just' and 'yet' (although in
American
> English the past simple can also be used here).
>
> The past simple is used when talking about an action which is finished,
with
> no obvious connection to the present. So as soon as you say a time in the
> past or the time is implied, then use the past simple, as we know we're
> talking about something that's finished.
>
> 'I lived in Berlin for 4 years' - it's over - it implies I'm not there
now.
>
> 'I went to France last year. It was beautiful. I went wine tasting.' The
> time is known to be in the past from the first sentence, so we use the
past
> simple throughout.
>
> When we use progressive (continuous / -ing) forms it implies an action
> happening for a limited time around the tense that we're using.
>
> 'I sing in a choir' - something I do regularly and I don't intend to stop
> 'I'm singing in a choir' - I'm either doing it right now, or it's only for
a
> limited time - I probably won't be doing it for much longer.
>
> 'I've lived in Berlin for 4 years' - up until now - I'm still here, and
it's
> something that I don't intend
> to change. 'I've been living in Berlin for 4 years' - it's still the time
up
> until now, but here I see it as a limited period of time - the sentence
> implies I might be thinking about moving to somewhere else.
>
> 'The phone rang when the postman came' - here the postman came and
> simultaneously, or immediately after the phone rang.
> 'The phone was ringing when the postman came' - the phone was ringing over
a
> (limited) period of time, and while it was ringing the postman came.
>
> Hope this helps. If it's any consolation, I know a few non-native English
> speakers whose accents are so good that people who don't know them think
> they are English, and they still slip up on tenses. Although English is a
> fairly easy language to learn at the start, it gets a lot more complex
later
> on. But saying this, most English speakers are so used to hearing
non-native
> speaker mistakes, that it doesn't really matter and we understand most
> things anyway.
>
> Gary
>
> ----------
> Hello Gary,

You admirably summed up the rules for the use of the Simple Past Tense  and
the Present Perfect Tense in British (and American) English. Those rules are
absolutely mindbending to any speaker of Dutch as they are so utterly
different from Dutch usage. It takes an awful lot of practicing before we
are able to use these tenses more or less confidently and correctly.
Jacqueline, you hit the nail on the head when you pointed out that the
Simple Past Tense is a narrative tense in Dutch and in Flemish dialects. I
would like to add a note in connection with the use of this tense in the
dialects I know (Flemish East-Babant). In the linguistic research I carried
out into these dialects it always struck me that the Simple Past Tense is
relatively scantily used. There are a considerable number of  - mainly
strong - verbs where the tense is systematically although unconsciously
avoided by native speakers. For these verbs they automatically switch to the
Present Perfect. When I tried to find out what the correct verbal form was
for the Simple Past, I was met by incomprehension. I tried to entice them to
use the Simple Past by saying things like: 'Suppose this happened yesterday
or last week, what would you say then?" To no avail. They stubbornly went on
using the Present Perfect. Or they found a way to avoid the problem
altogether by resorting to the trick of paraphrasing the action, using a
kind of continuous tense like "Ze waren aan 't + infinitive". It's clear
that some Past Tense forms must sound very queer to them. When I insisted
that they  - they were elderly people with only limited formal schooling -
should use the Simple Past they were flabbergasted. Even those who knew what
I meant by "Onvoltooid Verleden Tijd" were unable to give a straightforward
answer or wavered. I concluded that there is an enormous amount of
uncertainty as regards the Simple Past Tense.

Kind regards,

Roger Hondshoven

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