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what is the difference between "has he gone?" and "did he go?"

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

Briefly, 'has he gone?' expresses more immediacy, both physical and psychological, than 'did he go?'.

CalifJim · Answer

There are many ways that these two can be different, depending on context.

"Has he gone?" talks about the present result of the act of going. You may be asking if he is not present at this moment. "Has he left?" is an equivalent. Perhaps you do not want him to hear what you are going to say. It's important for you to know that he is not here now. You want to know if he has gone. It doesn't matter when he left the area where you are standing. It is now that you are concerned about.

"Has he gone?" may also talk about his entire lifetime of past experiences. Maybe the conversation turns to travel. "Have you gone to Italy?" "Have you gone to Japan?" "What about Tom? Has he gone?" These all ask whether a person has the experience of traveling in that country at any time before the time the question is asked. We do not care about any specific time -- in August of 1993, in March of 2003, and so on. None of that is important. We are only asking what the person has as a life experience. It is as if everyone has an imaginary diary where his life experiences are written. With "Has he gone?" we are asking if we will find in his "diary" TODAY, - if we look NOW - the notation: "Travel in Japan." on ANY page of the "diary".

"Did he go?" talks about a specific act of going. We want to know something about a specific occasion. Suppose we both know who "he" is. We both know that "he" intended to go, let's say, to a concert, but he was not sure he had the time or the money. It is now days after the concert, and we still have not seen him. You can ask me, "Did he go?". We are both focused on a particular "going" -- the "going to the concert that 'he' intended to perform". We do not consider his going to the concert as something that affects us in our present day lives. His "going" is certainly finished now. We just want to know the fact -- yes or no -- about this "going" that we are focused on. We are not interested in his "diary" of life experiences.

There are other ways these two questions can be used, but you need to consult many more references for all the details.

Another way to look at it is as follows:

Asking "Has he gone?" is like looking down a long, long road into the past. You want to see if something is on the road or not. (Is the 'going' on that road or is the 'going' not on that road?) Any concern about the distance between the 'going' and your current position (the present moment) is irrelevant.

Asking "Did he go?" is like the road, but with a thick wall positioned at a particular distance from you. You can't see over, under, around, or through the wall, but you see how far it is from you. Just on the other side of this wall is the past event or activity you want to know about. The wall represents the fact that the event is finished. Nothing on the other side affects you in an important way - you are shielded by the wall - but you want to know if the 'going' is just immediately on the other side or not.

This is why if you give a specific time (represented by the distance from you to the wall), using words like "yesterday", "last April", and so on, you use the "Did" form. But you can't use words that indicate a specific time (the wall) in the cases where there is no wall! -- the "Have" form. So "Has he gone last week" doesn't make sense. The "has" says there is no wall, and "last week" tells how far you are from the wall! Not a very intelligent combination, right?

Thinking in terms of these analogies only goes so far, so you mustn't expect them to work in every possible situation.

If you are just a beginner in English, don't worry about the differences. As you become more advanced and read, speak, write, and listen more and more, the differences will become clearer to you, and you will begin to know instinctively which to use in which situation.

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