Grammar problems

Question

What is the different meaning of past and present perfect tenses? Followings are the example:

He was a criminal.

He has been a criminal.

He never informed us of his double nationalities.

He has never informed of his double nationalities.

I also have problems using the past and past perfect tense. For example, what is the different meaning between the following?

He presented his ID card to the police.

He had presented his ID card to the police.

Thank you very much if you could clarify my question.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

The past is cut off from the present. Actions expressed in the past tense happened completely in the past. They are finished, and they do not continue have relevance for the current situation. You can even add the specific time that the event happened. When you use the past, you can always imagine a gap between the time the action happened and the moment you mention it.

He was a criminal. (then, at that time. Nothing is said about the time between when he was a criminal and today.)
He never informed us. (then, during that specific time period when we expected him to inform us. Nothing is said about the time between then and today.)

He presented his ID card to the police. (then, at that time, at some definite time in the past. Nothing is said about the time between when he presented his ID card and now. We are thinking of this as an action that happened -- not as an experience currently recorded in memory.)
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The present perfect connects a past action with the present moment. You cannot add a specific time that the action happened.

It can mean that a state or situation continues up to the present moment.

He has been a criminal. (from some time in the past until this very day)
He has never informed us. (from some time in the past until today)
_____

Or it can mean that the situation has more importance simply because it happened at all, not because of when it happened. Here we remember that something happened, but we don't care when it happened.

He has presented his ID card to the police. (at some indefinite time in the past. Presenting his ID card to the police is one of his past experiences, and the fact that this happened is relevant to the current situation.)

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The past perfect connects one past action to another past action. The past perfect action came before the past action. It usually makes very little sense in isolation. It's preferable to have several clauses to establish a past point of view first. Then the use of the past perfect can be used to show what happened earlier.

He had been a criminal. (before some other time in the past, not mentioned here)
He had never informed us. (before some other time in the past, not mentioned here)

He had presented his ID card to the police. (before some other time in the past, not mentioned here)

CJ

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