Confused about "present perfect"

Question

"Tell me about a time when you've had to work under intense pressure."

You see, if it's me, i would say "tell me about a time when you had to work under pressure." i would use past tense. because it's an event happened in the past. Now i'm confused and don't know if i should say:

"When I was in College, I had to work for tuition."

OR

"When I was in College, I have had to work for tuition."

"Letterman: People are depressed. And rightly so because we have a failed policy and Americans, God Bless them, are over there, volunteering to have gone, to have joined the Army, are over there and giving their lives nearly to the number of 3,000 Americans so far. So yes - people are depressed, but it’s not because they want to watch Dancing with the Stars."

And in this case, I will never think of using "present perfect."
I'd just say: "...Americans are volunteering to go to Iraq, to join the Army."
I'm frustrated to see native speakers to be able to use "past perfect" so freely.

Kooyeen · Accepted Answer

akdomI'm frustrated to see native speakers to be able to use "past perfect" so freely.

Maybe when they are not very concentrated they just join pieces of sentence at random. I don't like those perfect tenses. I would definitely say "When I was in college I had to work...". I have never been taught that the present perfect could be used to talk about a period of time in the past. But... maybe there's an exception? I don't know. Let's hear from the others.

Goodman · Answer

Present perfect is used in situations where something happened in the past (say last month for instance) and it is still true at the time of the statement being made, or inference is made when something initiated from the past and still valid.

i.e

John has worked on his backyard landscaping since he moved in his new house. (sometime ago), and still (has) not finished.

I have not seen John for months.

I’ve heard he has recently been retired. (

CalifJim · Answer

akdomYou see, if ~~it's~~ it were me, i I would say "~~tell~~ Tell me about a time when you had to work under pressure."

That would be OK, too.

This is a relative clause modifying time. Just about any tense is fine.

Tell me about a time [when / in which] you [have had to / had to / will have to / would have had to] work under pressure.

It's similar to an indirect question, the direct question form of which is:

When [did you have to / have you had to / would you have to / will you have to] work under pressure?
____

akdom"When I was in College, I have had to work for tuition."

NO! Here, when introduces an adverbial clause of time. In this case the reference is to a definite time that does not extend up to the time of utterance of the sentence, so the present perfect is impossible in the main clause.
____

akdomvolunteering to have gone, to have joined the Army,

Letterman was probably speaking extemporaneously, and not thinking about the grammar as much as about the thought. This is an example of the type of error that often occurs in flowing speech, when the speaker's enthusiasm for his subject overcomes his good grammatical sense.

CJ

Confused about "present perfect"

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