The Present Perfect Tense and The Present Perfect Progressive (Continuous) Tense

PRESENT PERFECT TENSE

FORM
[ has / have + past participle ]

EXAMPLES:

• He has lived here since he was young.
• For the past two years, she has worked at the stock exchange.
• I have been to London but I haven't been to New York.

The present perfect tense is used to describe action that began in the past and continues into the present or has just been completed at the moment of utterance. The present perfect is often used to suggest that a past action still has an effect upon something happening in the present.

Each of the highlighted compound verbs in the following sentences is in the present perfect tense.

• They have not delivered the documents we need.

This sentence suggest that the documents were not delivered in the past and that they are still undelivered.

• The health department has decided that all high school students should be immunized against meningitis.

The writer of this sentence uses the present perfect in order to suggest that the decision made in the past is still of importance in the present.

• The government has cut university budgets; consequently, the dean has increased the size of most classes.

Here both actions took place sometime in the past and continue to influence the present.

• The heat wave has lasted three weeks.

In this sentence, the writer uses the present perfect to indicate that a condition (the heat wave) began in past and continues to affect the present.

• Donna has dreamt about frogs sitting in trees every night this week.

Here the action of dreaming has begun in the past and continues into the present.

PRESENT PERFECT PROGRESSIVE (CONTINUOUS) TENSE

FORM
[ has / have + been + present participle ]

EXAMPLES:

• We have been playing tennis for two hours.
• They have been talking for the last hour.
• Apple has been teaching at the university since June.

Like the present perfect, the present perfect progressive is used to describe an action, event, or condition that has begun in the past and continues into the present. The present perfect progressive, however, is used to stress the on-going nature of that action, condition, or event.

Each of the highlighted verbs in the following sentences is in the present prefect progressive tense and each sentence suggests that the action began in the past and is continuing into the present.

• That dog has been barking for three hours; I wonder if someone will call the owner.
• I have been relying on my Christmas bonus to pay for the gifts I buy for my large family.
• They have been publishing this comic book for ten years.
• We have been seeing geese flying south all afternoon.
• Even though the coroner has been carefully examining the corpse discovered in Sutherland's Gully since early this morning, we still do not know the cause of death.

EXERCISES [PRESENT PERFECT TENSE AND PRESENT PERFECT PROGRESSIVE (CONTINUOUS) TENSE ]