Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello all,

In a rush as usual...

I did a half-hearted search on the above construction but DIDn't find anything/haven't found anything.

My francophone students like to use "did."

For example

Everything is going well. We...

A didn't have any problems so far
B haven't had any problems so far

The correct answer is B, they prefer A

Did you eat lunch? Have you eaten lunch? are both correct.

If I respond, "Yes I did" rather than "Yes I have," I would be using the emphatic construction.

However, I still feel fuzzy about how to explain the distinction and to provide some direction about when to use "do," especially as it concerns the present perfect.

Can anyone point me to more info on this issue, or am I making "much aDO" about nothing?? My Azar resources have not been that helpful on this point.

Best regards to all...

I'd really think about getting something better than the Azar series. I don't know quite to what depth she goes in her explanations (assuming that many - and halfway decent ones? - are given (the fact that you've drawn a blank is surely an indication)), but certainly her exercises (which is more or less all the Azars are, right?) seem atrocious (i.e. invented rubbish). You'll find some relatively recent discussion about this over on the Job Discussion forums, as well as plenty of alternative grammar book recommendations (including actual proper grammars). It actually worries me (irritates? even angers?) a little that books like Azar get published (because they seem of so little obvious help to those teachers/potential colleagues who use them)!

As for your actual query, sure, the search function is a bit of a blunt instrument (e.g. hundreds of results for 'present AND perfect'), but I do recall there being one similar thread centering around the very same sort of 'lunch' question at least.

But do you really need to repeat the auxiliary in the reply? 'Yes' would suffice by itself (or, if you feel it really must be followed, how about with some genuine info - 'Yes - I went/popped out to Subway' (?'I've been to Subway')), and there are other uses of the present perfect that would seem to provide a clearer implicit contrast function-wise to simple past (do a search for 'Richar* AND perfect' here and on the JD forums to see what I'm on about!).

The main difference that I point out to students between the past simple and the present perfect is that the present perfect indicates an effect on the present. If you include an adverb like "so far", you are relating the past to the present, so the present perfect should be used.

If you ask, "have you eaten lunch" you are implying that the action is relevant to the present. It's often used to preface an invitation to eat together.

One problem in teaching this distinction is that it is often ignored by native speakers, especially Americans. The adverbs "already" and "yet" are commonly used with the past simple, and they relate past actions to the present. Another issue is that once the context of the action has been established by the present perfect, the past simple is the tense for actually communicating details of the past event.

For example, we would ask a new acquaintance "have you been to England" rather than "Did you go to England". However, after responding positively "Yes", which indicates an effect on the present, the reply would be in the past simple, "I went there two years ago. I saw big Ben, etc."

A negative reply would be in present perfect, "no, I haven't". Present perfect implies a context. If a past context has already been established, it should not be used, .e.g. "Tell me about your tour of Europe. Did you go to England?"

Thanks Ouyang and Fluffy for your prompt and helpful replies!!

Actually, I do find Azar's charts quite helpful in most cases. There are simpler grammar books than Azar's, and other authors offer more complex explanations. IMO, a variety of teacher-trainers/applied linguists is a good thing -- they all bring something different. Sorry Fluffy, I don't have time right now to look at the other thread you recommended, but will check it out soon!

Ouyang's explanation regarding Present Perfect clarifies some confusion for me. I know see that the use of do and did seems to be an L1 interference problem for my French-speaking students related to the PP tense. If I can mirror back what I read in his post:

The correct verb tense for a reply to "Did you eat lunch" would be the simple past: "Yes I ate lunch as 12 noon." So "did" is used to establish a particular action at a particular time in the past.

Further, changing my earlier example:

Everything is going well. We...

A didn't have any problems yesterday
and
B haven't had any problems so far

are now both correct.

I'm still a bit fuzzy on how to label response "A," "didn't have." Is it an "emphatic" reply that's in the category of a modal verb? Is it important always to have labels, for that matter?

Merci/Thanks!!

CD

charliesdad wrote:I'm still a bit fuzzy on how to label response "A," "didn't have." Is it an "emphatic" reply that's in the category of a modal verb? Is it important always to have labels, for that matter?

I'm not familiar with the "emphatic" classification. I think it's more useful to classify "did" as a helping verb for making negative statements and questions.

Uncle Sam has made this unteachable really. If you are British you can make a stab at a "so far" kind of explanation, but "have" is fading away a lot in North America so the rules are very complex. In our global age, a proud prescriptivist UK campaign to preserve teachable rules has no hope of success.

Nobody ever knows for sure what is going on in Canadian English, and nobody seems to care.

I once asked a middle-aged American expat about this, and he sad that he considered the "did" form to be uneducated, though I suspect it may have become more widespread since he moved abroad.