Past or Past perfect?

Question

Hello everyone!I have two sentences:1. We have gone  to Ireland for our holidays last year.2. We went  to Ireland for our holidays last year.What is the correct sentence and why?

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

1. We have gone to Ireland for our holidays last year.
2. We went to Ireland for our holidays last year.

What is the correct sentence and why? #2, because you are just stating a simple fact about the past.

The present perfect in #1 does not fit with the phrase 'last year' which relates the statement to the past.

Clive

CalifJim · Answer

Neither of these has a past perfect tense, by the way.

Only the second one is correct.

You absolutely cannot combine a present perfect with a phrase that tells when the action took place. The present perfect is always understood to express action at an indefinite time.

*We have gone to Ireland for our holidays last year.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

We went to Ireland for our holidays last year.

Anonymous · Answer

"have gone" is present perfect, about your experience of life until the present, until now. So you could say "I have often gone to Ireland," or "We have gone to Ireland twice in the last six years."

But if you give a past time (last year, in 2015, yesterday) you cut it off from the present, and cannot use "have gone". It is past, so you must use past tense: "We went to Ireland in 2015." (This is true even for a very short time in the past. "Where is John?" "Well he's in the office. I've seen him twice this morning. I saw him just a minute ago.")

"had gone" refers to some time before a past time. So "We went to Ireland in 2015. We had already gone there three times and knew we liked it." Here "had gone" means before 2015, the time we are talking about.

Not important, but we'd probably say "We've been to Ireland twice", not "We've gone to Ireland twice." Think of a secretary answering the phone: "Can I speak to Mr Davis?" "Oh I'm sorry, he's gone to Paris." In other words, he's not here. He's in Paris. Compare that to "Can I speak to Mr Davis?" "Oh just a minute, I'm not sure ... Yes, it's OK, he's been to Paris but he's back now and I'll put you through to him."

"We've gone to Ireland" suggests we have left England (or France or Italy or ...) and are now in Ireland. "We've been to Ireland" suggests it was temporary and we are now home again (but know more about Ireland and have happy memories).

Edit: Changed "Can I speak to Paris?" to "Can I speak to Mr Davis?" CJ

Anonymous · Answer

We went to Ireland for our holidays last year

Past or Past perfect?

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