The Present Perfect Tense - Experiences
Regular Verbs
We use the present perfect tense for life experiences (any time up to now) and events occuring at least once in the past.
For I, You, We and They we use have and the past participle (V3).
For He, She and It, we use has and the past participle (V3).
For regular verbs we usually add ed to the infinitive to form the past participle (V3):
| Subject | HAVE | Past Participle (V3) | |
|---|
| I | have | climbed | a mountain before. |
| You | have | played | chess before. |
| He | has | cooked | lobster before. |
| Tom | has | watched | a ballet before. |
| She | has | danced | on stage before. |
| Sara | has | painted | on canvas before. |
| It | has | snowed | here before. |
| The town | has | flooded | badly before. |
| We | have | travelled | across India before. |
| They | have | sailed | around the World before. |
| The children | have | walked | to school before. |
| Tip! |
|---|
| * The past participle (V3) is usually the same as the verb in the past simple (V2). |
We add d to infinitives ending with e:
| Infinitive | Past Participle |
|---|
| move | moved |
| love | loved |
| fade | faded |
| produce | produced |
| manufacture | manufactured |
We change y to ied for words ending in y:
| Infinitive | Past Participle |
|---|
| study | studied |
| carry | carried |
| try | tried |
| Tip! |
|---|
| * We keep y if the letter before is a vowel: |
| plaied ✘ |
| played ✔ |
| enjoied ✘ |
| enjoyed ✔ |
| Subject | HAVE | Past Participle | |
|---|
| I | have | danced | on stage before. |
| I | have | studied | music before. |
Now try the quiz below!