I have known him for many years. One use of the present perfect is to express an activity happening now.
Something in the sentence or context tells us when the action began. The action may be continuous or periodic.
For example:
Radit and Jany have been happily married since their wedding day 50 years ago. continuously
He has milked the cows all his life without missing a day. periodic
Often the Present Perfect uses the words for or since. For tells the length of the action, and since indicates the point in time when the action began.
For example:
Radit has been married to the same woman for 50 years.
She has lived on the same farm since she was born.
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4 Present Perfect Progressive Tense
This tense is used to indicate the duration of an activity that began in the past and continues to the present.
For example:
I have been sitting here since seven o’clock.
I have been thinking about the best choice in my life. When the tense is used without any specific mention of time, it expresses a
general activity in progress recently, lately.
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b. Past Tense
1 Simple Past Tense
The past tense uses to talk about event or action that happened in the past. A chronological series of event that occurred in the past is commonly expressed in
17
Pamela Hartmann, et al, Tense Situations, California: IPS Publishers, Inc., 1984, p. 15
18
Betty Schrampfer Azar, Understanding and Using English Grammar, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1989, p. 36.
the past tense. Many times the past tense is accompanied by a specific time reference, such as six months ago, las December, in 1960, etc.
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For example:
The tree fell to the ground.
The kids dressed up as ghosts last Halloween.
We run inside and took off out wet boots. Then we stood by the fire to get warm.
2 Past Progressive Tense
The past progressive tense uses to talk about activities in progress at a specific past time in the past. The past progressive focuses on the activity at a
specific time in the middle of the activity.
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For example:
Zaenal was watching TV at seven o’oclock last night.
3 Past Perfect Tense
Past perfect tense expresses an action completed in the past prior to some other past event or time.
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For example:
She had already left before I could offer her a ride.
She had left before we got there.
4 Past Perfect Progressive Tense
The past perfect progressive is used for the duration of a single action before another action in the past. It was stopped or interrupted by the second action.
For example:
He had been doing a good job for us untill he went over to “the other side.” He stopped doing a good job for us
19
Susan M. Reinhart, Testing Your English Grammar, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1985 p. 18.
20
Barbara Robinson, Focus, New York: St. Martin Press, 1995 p. 119-120.
21
Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen Freeman, The Grammar Book, Heinle Heinle Publishers, 1999 p. 116.
