Present perfect is hard!

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Fri May 20, 2005 4:49 pm

Sure, but he's still invoking/instructing. To me, you shall/thou shalt not kill means "you won't because I'm telling you not to". In other words, there's an element of speaker involvement which isn't present with will.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Fri May 20, 2005 5:23 pm

The old rule used to be that if you inverted the normal use, then you were emphasizing the determination of the speaker, as in the unfortunate case of the drowning man who exclaimed
I will drown and no one shall save me.
and did drown.

However, because it is less common 'shall' now often acts as the emphatic version in all three persons. To put it simply there is a mix-up.

One thing is clear; 'shall' in the commandments is not a 'future' tense. 'Will' in place of 'shall' would turn the commandments into predictions, and pretty unikely ones at that!

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Sat May 21, 2005 10:02 am

Absolutely. I'm not going to argue that one. You know my views on "will as future", never mind with shall.

revel · Post by **revel** » Sat May 21, 2005 11:14 am

Hey all!

I find myself explaining the present perfect in structure very early on. Though my own materials do not include "have got", my students are usually not virgins to English and what's more, are probably exposed to "have got" at an early stage of their learning. Thus when I do exercise fifteen with the students "use have or has" in simple present meaning possession of the item in question: "He has a new suit." I often have to offer some explanation between the two uses of "have", as a verb and as an auxiliary, and how that touches on how to transform affirmations into negations or interrogations. I do not go into the usage of the pp at this time, although I do give a couple of examples in Spanish so that they know what construction I am talking about. And as I do not present verbs based on "present, past, future" but rather in terms of structural similarities verb constructs share, the need for the present perfect arises in its moment, which is likewise often very early in my classes, as students will be using such constructs in improvisational exercises. The understanding of the present perfect, or the use of "will" and "going to" or the modals is built up gradually from the discovery and practice and use of the construct within a context. Other teachers take care of the step-by-step process offered in the texts we use at our academy.

Soooo, I myself don't find the present perfect any harder for my students than learning to lengthen their vowel sounds a midgen or stop making complete sentences when a word or two is enough. It's actually one of the easier things to pick up, when faced with (OH NOOOO) phrasal verbs and idioms!!!!¿¿¿¿¡¡¡¡

Steven, I've truely enjoyed your comments in this thread.

un saludo a todos.

peace,
revel.

Lorikeet · Post by **Lorikeet** » Sat May 21, 2005 4:34 pm

Heh--I don't teach "have got" as a present perfect, because we use "have gotten" for that.

To me, "I've got a pen." and "I have a pen." are the same. Did you notice a difference in usage?

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Sat May 21, 2005 8:45 pm

Structurally "have got" for possession or obligation etc is a present perfect but I think it gets taught in Br E much sooner, at least for possession anyway.

I think I remember commenting in a thread that it was hardly possible for me as a Brit to have the discipline to avoid "Have you got a pencil/piece of paper etc?" however much one decided to only use "Do you have?"

Different meaning? I once asked random colleagues to describe what they saw in their mind's eye when I said either "This family has a lot of money" or "This family's got a lot of money".

Unfailingly the "has" group described "old money" and the "'s got" described lottery winners or some other kind of recently acquired fortune. Maybe I over stressed the "got" and influenced them that way .

Obviously "The Duke of Westminster's got a lot of money" is exactly the same as the same sentence with "has" but it was still an interesting result from a tiny sample though probably a fluke. Try it.

Lorikeet · Post by **Lorikeet** » Sat May 21, 2005 9:12 pm

ah In American English it would have been
"The family has gotten a lot of money." which would make the lottery meaning quite clear.

"The family has a lot of money." and "The family's got a lot of money." would be the same. (to me anyway)

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Sun May 22, 2005 10:54 pm

I suppose when some forum members were little boys and their fathers wagged their fingers and said....

"You will not enter that building site again, do you hear!"

Some little boys thought that daddy was making a very poor prediction.

Shall and will are birds of a feather, most of the time at least. Which isn't to say that Xui hasn't found a way to overuse the more formal term, however. If that is the biggest problem in his English then he has improved a lot!

Tara B · Post by **Tara B** » Wed May 25, 2005 10:55 am

Thanks for the link, fluffy. Speaking of re-writing books, let me see if I can rephrase my original question. If you were writing two grammar books, one intermediate and one advanced, what would you include about the present perfect in each one?

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Wed May 25, 2005 9:27 pm

suppose when some forum members were little boys and their fathers wagged their fingers and said....

"You will not enter that building site again, do you hear!"

Some little boys thought that daddy was making a very poor prediction.

No! Because Daddy would have been using contrastive stress.

'You will not enter that building site again.'

Auxiliaries do not normally carry stress. When you wish to give 'will' the kind of force you are implying, you need to stress it.

hall and will are birds of a feather, most of the time at least.

Can we have a few examples of them flocking together please?

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Wed May 25, 2005 10:43 pm

Since we are talking about written language, who knows if the authors have constrastive stress in mind?

Anyway, I'm not sure I'm convinced that 'will' always takes it in this situation while 'shall' doesn't. 'Shall' in this sense sounds so archaic.

I admit though, that most situations where the two are similar "shall" sounds fusty. "I think I shall go for a swim later", whereas the different uses such as "Shall we dance?" are more commonly said.

Hey, though, we are talking about Xui! This isn't the guys biggest problem!
(Though, actually, if you look at Mr.Swan's 6th set of comments about the present perfect "bad grammar" you might believe Xui wrote them.............)

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 5:35 am

Tara B wrote:I agree that irregulars are often easier than regulars.

But, even so, I find that trying to learn verb forms--(2 forms? 3 forms? 1 form?***).....

***Maybe I should explain myself: walk/walked/walked vs. go/went/gone vs. put/put/put.

I'm finding the third chapter of Huddlestone and Pullum's new book interesting in relation to how to categorize the various forms of a verb:
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/c ... 0521612888

I suppose I just see a lemma that takes on tense (or aspects, when a different - modal or auxiliary - verb takes the first, finite slot in the verb phrase).

Thanks for the link, fluffy. Speaking of re-writing books, let me see if I can rephrase my original question. If you were writing two grammar books, one intermediate and one advanced, what would you include about the present perfect in each one?

To be honest I don't ultimately accept the validity of breaking up the language into separate "levels". There are really only two levels: not knowing enough, and knowing enough (by "enough", I mean in the sense of 'plenty, more than enough', rather than 'just enough to order a coffee and get by in a very lightweight "conversation" '), and it can hinder rather than help the students if teachers control the "immediate" focus (target language, practise) too much (I'm all for target language, but not if it closes off potentially interesting forays down the side roads that usually appear in most lessons).

That being said, I do see the validity of maintaining a (sometimes only nominal) division between speech and writing, or between "high-surrender" items and e.g. ESP vocabulary and phrase study lists.

mrandmrsjohnqsmith · Post by **mrandmrsjohnqsmith** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 2:20 pm

I like to tell students that I have a special bag. In a bag we "have" things, right? I have lipstick, I have a pen, a frog, etc. This is a special bag, an invisible bag which no one can take away from me, in which I keep my experiences. I went to China in 2003, and now I have that experience. Anywhare I go, I always have it with me. I'm not saying when I got it, or how, but I have it.
That's sort of how I attempt to explain the logic behind present perfect. It may seem kind of childish, but it seems to work on occasion.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:10 pm

And to delve deeper into the experience, you have to open the magic portal to the past...

shuntang · Post by **shuntang** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 5:09 pm

Present Perfect is difficult to explain because it denotes either present and past:
Ex: I have worked there since 1987. (a present action)
Ex: I have worked there in the past/ before. (a past action)
The former is confused with Simple Present, and the latter, Simple Past.

Teacher Discussion Forums

Present perfect is hard!

Getting back to the difficulty of the present perfect....

in teaching present perfect