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StepOnMe Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

Has been vs. Had been?

1.) She has been there or she had been there. What are the differences?

2.) I was reading the novel 1984, and I have a question about this sentence: "Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love..."

What happens if it is: "Winston has never been inside the Ministry of Love..."

What are the difference then?
  

Top answer

Has been is the present perfect tense, which is used to describe something that happened in the past. Winston has never been inside the Ministry of Love. Had been is the past perfect tense, which is used to describe something that happened in the past before something else in the past.

— RandomGuy

  • Has been is the present perfect tense, which is used to describe something that happened in the past.
  • Winston has never been inside the Ministry of Love.
  • Had been is the past perfect tense, which is used to describe something that happened in the past before something else in the past.
  • Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love before he moved to Oceania.
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4 Answers
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Has been is the present perfect tense, which is used to describe something that happened in the past.

Winston has never been inside the Ministry of Love.

Had been is the past perfect tense, which is used to describe something that happened in the past before something else in the past.

Winston had never been inside the Ministr
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winston has never been inside ... means he has never been there untill now
but if you say he had never been there you for example refer to a specific time and you express that he had never been there within the span of time you mentioned in before this part of sentence
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StepOnMeShe has been there or she had been there.
has been there implies until now.
had been there implies until then (a point in time in the past).

Where P is a moment in the past and X is the present moment (the moment you say the sentence):

..............................P....................X................
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StepOnMe I was reading the novel 1984, and I have a question about this sentence: "Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love..."What happens if it is: "Winston has never been inside the Ministry of Love..."
From the moment of his birth up to the past time that the writer is talking about, Winston had never been inside the Ministry of
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