Perfect Tenses

Present Perfect Tense

Present Perfect Tense shows something that happened in the past before now, but at a non-specific time. It also shows that something happened in the past regularly or many times. This is something related to the present, but it shows something from the past.

This tense follows the sentence pattern:

Subject + Present Tense of "have" (have/has: "have" if the subject is plural and "has" if singular + Past Participle of the Verb

example:

           "Rose has eaten kimchi before."

The above sentence means that Rose ate kimchi sometime before, but it is not known exactly when.

Past Perfect Tense

Past Perfect Tense has nothing to do with the present. Now is not important. It also shows two actions in the past, and that one of the actions happened before the other action.

It usually follows the sentence pattern:

Subject + had (past tense of has/have: regardless of the subject, singular or plural) + Past Participle of the Verb + object or complement if any + the other action that happened after the first action

The first action is the Past Perfect Tense.

examples:

Notice the first act, "practiced". Steve did the practice first before he did the second act which is "went (the past participle of "go") to the competition".

The two sentences are combined using the SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTION, "BEFORE".

The sentence structure should not be confused. Whatever words are used to connect the two actions, the focus should remain on the first and second actions. Just like the above example, "I had already bought an umbrella when it started to rain.".

To break the parts down, "bought" is the first action, and it happened first before the second action/event took place. It means that I had bought an umbrella already before the rain started to fall.  It does NOT matter who did the action, as the clue to finding the past perfect tense is the word “had” identifying the first action.

Future Perfect Tense

The Future Perfect Tense shows two actions in the future. Now is also not important in this type of tense, just like the Past Perfect Tense. This shows that one action will have happened first before the second action will have happened.

This follows the sentence pattern:

Subject + will + have + Past Participle of the Verb + object or complements if any +  Second Action/Event

NOTE: Only "have" is put after "will" regardless of the subject (singular or plural).

Meaning: Before next month arrives, I will have finished my first semester.

"I will have finished." Here is the first action. "By next month" is the second action. Although it is not stated in the sentence, there is still a clue that means “before next month arrives".