Simple past vs. present perfect

Question

Hi,I´ve found an article from BBC. I have to ask you a question about using these two tenses if I get them right:China has criticised those exercises as an attempt at US containment in an area Beijing sees as its own responsibility. (it still criticises those exercises,so it happens until now)North Korea accused Seoul and Washington of "persistently escalating tension", adding that South Korea had "persistently mocked at the (North's) sincere efforts to improve the inter-Korean relations and turned away their faces from them". (it´s an action that happened,for example,2 days ago and has nothing to do with the present)The article can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11955625Am I thinking correctly? If not,please explain it to me...Thank you in advance!

LouiseT · Accepted Answer

kane159China has criticised those exercises as an attempt at US containment in an area Beijing sees as its own responsibility. (it still criticises those exercises,so it happens until now)

Not quite. It happened sometime between an undefined moment in the past and now, probaly quite recently.

The same can be said of the second statement as we do not know when this happened.

Journalists often vary the tenses used in reporting in this way to make the article more interesting. Both are grammatically correct as neither place the action firmly in the past by saying " two days ago" for example.

Kane159 · Answer

Thank you.

So,the present perfect makes it more immediate,right?

I guess it´s not a good way to learn the difference between these two by reading articles from newspapers.

LouiseT · Answer

kane159So,the present perfect makes it more immediate,right?

It can do. From reading this I would think that the fist action happened before the second, but that is not certain.

kane159I guess it´s not a good way to learn the difference between these two by reading articles from newspapers

No but it is a great way to improve your general grammar and vocabulary, please don't stop.

CalifJim · Answer

These two tenses are difficult. In many cases, such as those in your two examples here, where no exact time is mentioned, either tense can be used. The writer might have written "China criticised" or "North Korea has accused". The difference has to do with the "feeling" of the tenses. The writer is conveying a feeling in each case.

The feeling that the writer is trying to convey by using a present perfect tense is that we are assessing how things stand today, now, as we speak, as a result of what happened in the past. The writer is not telling a story, but is assessing currently known facts. It's a matter of a present-time judgment. (The situation need not continue to the present, though it can. It merely has to have relevance within the present discussion.)

The feeling the writer is trying to convey by using a past tense is that we are there with him in the past, experiencing the past as if we were there. This past is the tense of story-telling. It doesn't matter what the situation is like today. We are not interested in the implications for the current state of affairs. The event may have something to do with the present situation, but that's not what the writer is focusing on. We are, at least temporarily, transported back to the time of the story and forget the present.

So,

China has criticised those exercises as an attempt ... conveys the feeling that China holds certain opinions today as the result of the exercises mentioned. We can make a good guess about these current opinions because China has criticised in the past. For all we know, maybe China has criticised on more than one occasion, thus strengthening our evidence about what opinions they hold now.

And,

North Korea accused Seoul and Washington of ... conveys the feeling that an event took place. We imagine ourselves back in time, and we forget about the present. We can imagine this as part of a story with an entire series of events: North Korea accused Seoul ... and then Seoul insulted North Korea ... and then North Korea claimed ... and then Washington announced ..., and so on.

In short, the present perfect assesses; the past narrates. The present perfect answers "How do things stand now?" The past answers "What happened?"

CJ

Kane159 · Answer

Wow,thanks both of you,especially you,CJ!

I guess I´ll print your comment so I could finally memorize the difference between these two

Once again,thank you!

Simple past vs. present perfect

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