Did you finish vs Have you finished

Question

I know this first is past tense and the second is perfect present.  What I want to know is are both correct to use.

HairpinShare · Accepted Answer

I am sure the later one is used all the time, and through checking on NYT and The Times search engines, the former one shows no support.

Mister Micawber · Answer

That's ridicuous, Hairpin. Both are perfectly reasonable verb forms. [url=http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?frow=0&n=10&srcht=s&query=%22did+you+finish%22&srchst=nyt&submit.x=33&submit.y=16&submit=sub&hdlquery=&bylquery=&daterange=full&mon1=01&day1=01&year1=1981&mon2=09&day2=11&year2=2010]HERE[/url] are the results of my NYT search for 'Did you finish". As you can see, I got several. Of course the questions, 'Did you finish?' and 'Have you finished?' are not forms that appear much in newspapers generally. A newspaper is not the best place to search for lexical phrases, since many rarely appear in periodicals.

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousWhat I want to know is are both correct to use.

They are simply the same thought expressed in two different tenses. Why wouldn't they both be correct?

Will you finish?
Had you finished?
Would you finish?
Were you finishing?
Will you be finishing?

These are all correct, of course. They are the same basic sentence in different tenses.

It's very rare that a sentence is incorrect just because of the tense of the verb it contains.
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The question is not whether the sentences are correct, but when it is appropriate to use each one. As ridiculous as it seems, you use "Have you finished?" when you mean "Have you finished?" and you use "Did you finish?" when you mean "Did you finish?"

Have you finished? applies to a situation where the time of the finishing is indefinite. The focus is on the present moment, and the scope of time taken into consideration is the entire period from the finishing up to the present moment. In other words, it's like saying Have you finished by now? or Have you finished by this time? It is grammatically incorrect to add any further information in the sentence which specifies a definite time. *Have you finished yesterday? for example, is wrong.

Did you finish? applies to a situation where the time of the finishing is definite. The focus is on the moment in the past when the finishing happened, and the scope of time taken into consideration is limited to the moment when the finishing happened. It's like saying Did you finish then? or Did you finish at that time? It is grammatically correct to add further information that specifies a definite time. Did you finish yesterday? for example, is correct.

CJ

HairpinShare · Answer

What the **** of the Chinese Great Fire Wall (it prohibit our access to Youtube, Facebook, even Google...) Actually I sometimes use did you finish, but the forum notice one should post evidently, so...

Mister Micawber · Answer

Yes, too bad about the Great Firewall of China.  You're missing a lot of good music videos.

Did you finish vs Have you finished

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