To form the present perfect, we first need to know the past participle form of the main verb. Many people memorise verb forms in a set of three: infinitive – simple past – past participle:
- Eat – ate – eaten
- See – saw – seen
- Write – wrote – written
- Talk – talked – talked
Many regular verbs just add ‘ed’ to the root verb to form the past participle. But there are plenty of common exceptions, for example:
- Be – was – been
- Go – went – gone
- Speak – spoke – spoken
- Swim – swam – swum
We form the present perfect by adding the verb “to have” to the past participle of the verb.
Have/has + past participle
Examples:
We have been to China. (affirmative)
He has not talked to me. (negative)
To form a question, you put have/has in front of the subject.
Examples:
Have you seen the new Bond film?
Has Sara worked as a waitress?
To form a question using ‘wh-‘ question words, add the question word before the auxiliary.
Examples:
What have you done today?
Why has the council called this meeting?