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Anonymous Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Past or present perfect before certain time phrases (words)?

Hi. Could we use both past and present perfect tenses with the following phrases?

in the past/last three years

over the past/last three years

Are these correct?

He played/has played for us in the last/past three years.

He was/has been an important member of our team over the past (last?) three years.
  

Top answer

Present Perfect is used to describe something that happened in the past ( not a specific time ) While the Simple Past is used to describe something that happened at a ( specific time ) in the past. For example I have seen him before. ( I have seen him in the past, but I don't remember when) I saw him yesterday.

— YoungBuddy

  • Present Perfect is used to describe something that happened in the past ( not a specific time ) While the Simple Past is used to describe something that happened at a ( specific time ) in the past.
  • For example I have seen him before.
  • ( I have seen him in the past, but I don't remember when) I saw him yesterday.
  • ( I saw him at a specific time in the past which is yesterday ) Same applies on your sentences Anonymous He played/has played for us in the last/past three years.
  • ) three years.
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2 Answers
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Present Perfect is used to describe something that happened in the past ( not a specific time )

While the Simple Past is used to describe something that happened at a ( specific time ) in the past.
For example

I have seen him before. ( I have seen him in the past, but I don't remember when)
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He has played for us in the past three years. OK. He played at some unspecified time for some unspecified period of time during the three years ending today -- at least once.
He played for us in the past three years. A little unusual, perhaps. He played at some unspecified time for some unspecified period of time during the three years ending today -- at least once.
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