The Present Perfect Simple Tense

How to form the present perfect

To make the positive present perfect tense, use:

‘have’ / ‘has’ + the past participle
Make the past participle by adding ‘ed’ to regular verbs (for example, ‘play’ becomes ‘played’)
There are a few verbs that change their spelling when you add ‘ed’ (for example, ‘study’ becomes ‘studied’)

The negative is really simple too. Just put ‘not’ after ‘have’ or ‘has’:

Negative	Negative Short Form
I have not eaten breakfast today	I haven’t eaten
you have not been to Asia	you haven’t been
he has not seen the new film	he hasn’t seen
she has not played tennis	she hasn’t played
it has not snowed this winter	it hasn’t snowed
we have not slept all night	we haven’t slept
they have not tried the food	they haven’t tried

To make a question, put ‘have’ or ‘has’ in front of the subject:

‘Yes / No’ Questions

have I missed the bus?

have you visited London?

has he worked as a waiter before?

has she met John?

has it been cold this week?

have we arrived too early?

have they studied English grammar before?

As you can imagine, for ‘wh’ questions, we just put the question word before ‘have’ or ‘has’:

‘Wh’ Questions

where have I left my umbrella?

what have you done today?

why has he gone already?

where has she been in the UK?

why has it rained so much this summer?

what have we done?

where have they learned English before?