• Unspecified point in the past
  • An action that happened in the past, and has a result in the present
  • Talking about general experiences at some moment in life (marker words ever, never)
  • Actions that have recently occurred (marker word just)
  • Actions that have not occurred up to now (marker word yet)
  • Actions that have occurred before it was expected (marker word already)
  • Actions that began in the past and haven’t changed (marker words for, since)

The present perfect tense is used in the following situations:

  • ‘have’ / ‘has’ + the past participle
  • The past participle is formed by adding ‘ed’ to regular verbs (for example, ‘play’ becomes ‘played’). There are some irregular words that are formed differently

The present perfect tense is formed like this: