this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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Privacy
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I'll answer this because the two previous questions depend on what you want to express. Just a note before-hand, the best site for English grammar I know is ego4u.
First the quick answer:
Longer answer:
Conceptually, there are a limited number of possible tenses. Here is a picture from ego4u
Let's say you want to tell a story. There are the static states you can describe
So, now that we've expressed a state, something that is unchanging, we would like to describe changing actions are particular strips in time:
Alright, we have expressed points in time both static and changing, but what about actions that happen just before those points in time? They concluded or may be still happening. We call those "perfect" tenses.
And finally, if we look at the diagram we see one last group of progressives - perfect progressive. Remember, progressive describe something that's still ongoing at the point in time. You may ask why they are needed when the "perfect" overlaps with the progressive - something that started before a point in time and continues to happen.
Well, that difference might be lost with time as they tend to become less and less important. A grammar purist might disagree but in colloquial English, my experience shows less and less people can tell the difference and I do have to look it up:
The difference between "perfect" and "perfect progressive" is the focus of the tense. "Perfect" makes the result important and "perfect progressive" makes the duration or fluidity / continuity of the action important. I invite you to read this page on Present Perfect Simple vs Present Perfect Progressive. It explains it quite well.
Hopefully that will help you answer your two first questions.
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