A British English question

Both sentences are about something that happened recently and not at a specific time, so the present perfect is fine. The first is very clear because of the word 'just'; the second could go either way, depending on how long ago the window was broken.

Ant_222
It is well known that in BrE the Present Perfect tense is used more frequently than in AmE. I wanted to ask whether the following two sentences should use Present Perfect in British English:

Hi,

I don't know where you have picked up this notion: "It is well known that in BrE the Present Perfect tense is used more frequent

dimsumexpressIf a situation calls for present perfect, regardless whether it's in Britain or in the US, the same grammar rules still applies.

I was told there is this difference:

American: I just saw your sister / I've just seen your sister.
British: I've just seen your sister.

American: I already ate. / I've already eaten.
British:

Ant_222It is well known that in BrE the Present Perfect tense is used more frequently than in AmE.

The difference in frequency is probably miniscule, however.

CJ

Hi Kooyeen,

Perhaps, my statement needs to be expanded a little more to avoid misconception.

If A said: People are raving about the new movie "Avatar"; have you seen it?

B may say: It was very entertaining. I saw it yesterday. Or, I've just seen it (without any time indicator).

If the answer is present prefect oriented, then

Ant_2221. Who has just taken my newspaper?
2. Who has broken the window?

Well, I for one am hoping that one of our British cousins comments on Anton's specificsentences. To my American ear, the wording of sentence number 1 doesn't strike me as something that is very likely to be produced by an American mouth.

Maybe I didn't made my thoughts clear enough, so thank you, dimsumexpress and CalifJim for your corrections. I should have said that there are cases where AmE allows both Past Simple and Present, and BrE requires Present Perfect.

Also my initial opinion had been in exact agreement with yours, Yankee, but it wavered when my fried told me his teacher's words, so I decided to consult you.

The problem is that grammar books make it sound like it's mandatory, and they insist on telling students that the present perfect is used in such cases. I'm interested in this too, because I've been wondering whether there are really any grammar differences between BrE and AmE.
I remember grammar books (which always deal with BrE) used to say that you must use the present perfect with "just",

Hi,

Let me give you an example from Practical English Usage by Michael Swan.

Who has let the cat in? (= look at the mess the cat has done..)

Who let the cat in? (who was the person responsible..)

The same logic could be aplied to your sentences.

Who has broken the window (it's broken and we need to fix it)

Who broke the window (who was the pe

I'm going to quote some stuff that can be found in Swan's Practical English Usage, which is often considered to be the most complete ESL grammar book available. This should apply to BrE, I guess. Here are some short paragraphs written by Swan:

If we say something has happened, we are thinking about the past and the present at the same time.