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Teo Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

They have gone/been to London several times.

01. They have gone to London several times. 02br
002. They have been to London several times. 02br
02br
00A native speaker of American English says #1 is perfectly acceptable. But many Taiwanese teachers of English says only #2 is correct. Can any other native speaker of English make some comment?02br
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qy=They+have+gone+to+London+

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11 Answers
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0Two different things:02br
00gone: the stress is on the travel/journey02br
02br
00been: the stress is on the place, on the visit02br
00Both OK 02br
00You find the first in this BNC (British National Corpus) sample:02br
02br
0500250hrefhttp://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/saraWeb?qy=They+have+gone+to+London+
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0Or you can make this seach at the New York Times:02br
05000 0240hrefhttp://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Anytimes.com+%22have+gone+to+*+several+times%22+&btnG=Google+Search
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1a05000 02a0260hrefhttp://www.EnglishForward.com/English/BeenOrGone/nrmq/post.htm
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1a05000 02a00 01b001,61002b00 results from 01b00nytimes.com02b00 for 01b00"have been to * several times"02b00. 01a
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0Here's the thing: When you're in the classroom, use "been." In real life, feel free to use "gone." 02br
02br
00Your teacher apparently cares about the difference. I completely agree with the others who have already posted on the "okay-ness" of gone. 0-
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0 Glad to see that somebody actually "said something" in this thread, Barbara!02br
00I was beginning to think it was merely a game of dueling weblinks. 05002br
02br
00CJ 010id1
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1b00I've read in a few English usage books that02b00 01b01i00They have gone to London02i02b00 01b00means that 01i00they are on their way there or they are now in London .02i02b02br
02br
01i01b00They have been to London02b02i00 01b00means
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2br
02br
02br
00<<<1. They have gone to London several times. 02br
00<<<2. They have been to London several times.02br
02br
00As standing, only # 2 makes good sense grammatically and in context.02br
00# 1 looks correct but sounds like finger nail on chalkboard to my ears.02img
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0 01blockquote
01cite10Yoong Liat12cite11b10I've read in a few English usage books that12b10 11b11i10They have gone to London12i12b10 11b10means that 11i10they are on their way there or they are now in London .12i12b12br
11i11b10They
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0 Hi Goodman02br
01span01blockquote
00<<<1. They have gone to London several times.11span12span12br
10Sentence 1 cannot be interpreted as anything other than a reference to a number of individual past events. The context (i.e. the words 'several times') takes care of that.1
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