Re: What's the difference between "He has move out." and "He moved out."?
- From: Matt <matt271829-news@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:25:14 -0700 (PDT)
On Apr 26, 9:11 am, datere <ee123456...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi, everyone. I'm confused with past tense and present perfect tense.
So could you indicate the difference between the following sentences
for me? I'd appreciate your help.
He has move out
"He has moved out"
He moved out.
He has left.
He left.
I'm glad that he has left.
I'm glad that he left.
It doesn't seem that he has told a lie.
It doesn't seem that he told a lie.
Thank you!
Generally speaking, the simple past tense (e.g. "he moved out")
describes an action completed in the past, with no implication about
what happened subsequently or how the action may or may not affect the
present. The present perfect tense, on the other hand, implies that
the past action has a continuing effect that is still apparent.
For example, you might say "He moved out, but then we made up and he
moved back in", which is just a chronological description of past
events. But if someone came calling for him you might say "He's not
here; he's moved out", because in this case the fact that he moved out
has a continuing effect on the present state of affairs -- namely that
he's not here. It's true that you could also say "He's not here, he
moved out", with effectively no difference in meaning, because the
continuing effect (he's not here) is in this case obvious from
context. However, you would never say "he's moved out and then he
moved back in". This is because "he's moved out" implies that his
moving out is still in effect.
Similar principles apply to all your sentences. For example, "It
doesn't seem that he has told a lie" might be used in preference to
"It doesn't seem that he told a lie" when examining, in the present, a
document that he wrote. His truthfulness has a pertinent continuing
effect -- namely the veracity of the document being inspected.
There are at least two other cases when you might use the present
perfect form of wording (to be honest I don't know if they have
different grammatical names, which is why I said "form of wording").
In combination with words like "after" and "when", it can refer to the
future. For example: "I'll feel a lot happier after he has moved out".
It can also be used to affirm that something indeed happened one or
more times in the past when there might be some doubt about it or when
you simply want to draw attention to it. For example: "I have visited
Tokyo on several occasions".
There could well be some other usages and subtleties that I've omitted
to mention.
.
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