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Why can't I write this sentence?When have you visited Paris? Should it be when did you visit Paris? and why?

Andriy Lapin · Accepted Answer

Greetings, Lpeake,

past simple <visited>, rather than present perfect <have visited>, is used when the speaker thinks of an activity or state occurring at a specific time in the past:

I visited Paris five years ago. (Time past is specified by an adverbial in bold)

In your question, there is no adverbial of past, but obviously one's visit to Paris occurred at a time that the speaker can only think of as past. Therefore, use only past simple:

When did you visit Paris? (When elicits particular time in the past)

Respectfully, Gleb Chebrikoff

Avangi · Answer

Thanks for joining us, ipeake. Welcome to English Forums!

We sometimes make the mistake of not allowing the poster any prior context.
If your friend is bragging about his experiences in Paris and you're quite sure he's making it up, it's quite natural to say, "When have you [ever] visited Paris?" (sometimes said with an air of disbelief)

Sometimes we find that a poster has heard his example as part of a conversation, rather than as an isolated sentence. Or he'll say something like, "I heard it on Friends."

Most English usage is in fact part of some context.

In terms of style, "I have never visited Paris" is probably as common as "I never visited Paris."
"Have you visited Paris recently" is probably as common as "Did you visit Paris recently," but in this case the simple past seems to imply that you know he visited.

If you have reason to believe there was only one visit, "When did you visit Paris" is probably the better choice.
And of course simple past may be chosen to ask about multiple trips.

Andriy Lapin · Answer

Hello, Avangi,

thank you for sharing your views and laying stress on the need to explore contextual links. Let me, therefore, further elaborate on the topic by briefly outlining when it is (and when it is NOT) possible to resort to perfect present, rather than preterite.

1. As a general rule, when-questions referring to a single bygone situation make use of an simple past:

When did she leave? <direct question>

I wonder when the accident happened. <indirect question>

The reason for the obligatory use of the preterite is that the use of when? with reference to a single given situation reveals that the speaker is not concerned with NOW but with THEN. When? asks for the identification of the time of actualization of a particular situation whose actualization is presupposed. (Thus, When did John hit Jane? carries the presupposition ‘John hit Jane’.) Since NOW is a time that is by definition given, when? presupposes that the time asked for is not the present. The use of when? in a clause referring to a single bygone situation thus automatically means that there is actualization focus, hence that the temporal focus is on the past time of actualization of the bygone situation. In other words, When? is incompatible with an indefinite perfect. (In fact, the very reason why we can speak of ‘indefinite perfect’ is that the
time of actualization remains indefinite and that the speaker is not concerned with it.)
with it.)

On the other hand, we use the present perfect, not the preterite, in sentences like the following, in which the present perfect is the perfect version of the ‘timeless’ (or rather, omnitemporal) use of the present tense:

When have I done enough? <When I have worked seven hours, seven and a half, eight …?>

When have you achieved “rapport”? <When you model and the customer follows, you have achieved a high degree of “rapport”.>

In every case the meaning of the when-question is something like ‘At what point on its progress along a scale of increasing approximation to Y does X count as Y?’

3. There is another use of when that goes with the present perfect. In this use, which involves the number-quantifying constitution type of present perfect, the speaker asks the addressee to look back over the pre-present - usually the question is in the second person and the pre-present is the period of the addressee’s life - and asks for the/an occasion or occasions on which a situation has actualized. These when-questions do not ask for temporal locations but for instances of experience in a period up to now. Usually they seem to ask too what characterized the ‘occasion’ or context of the situation. A typical context for such when-questions is a list of questions about one individual’s experiences. In other cases, though, the speaker is interested in one particular situation-type (experience) and how that situation-type has been experienced by various people:

[What makes you happy? In looking over your life, where and] when have you been
the happiest? [Where were you, and what were you doing?]

When have you experienced Stendhal syndrome? [Or rather, to what piece of art or music? (…) When have you felt like your entire existence was swallowed by something you either looked into or listened to? [How, exactly did you feel it happen?]

It goes without saying that there are numerous other occasions when this simple-past-to-present perfect movement is justified with persuasive arguments, but most of them are limited to specific operations within concrete subregisters (law, etc.). It is also true that, in many instances, people flatly refuse to follow basic rules (let alone more sophisticated ones), and end up speaking fluently but recklessly.

Avangi, many thanks again for paying attention to these intricacies of present perfect usage.

Respectfully, Gleb Chebrikoff

Avangi · Answer

Gleb_Chebrikoff It is also true that, in many instances, people flatly refuse to follow basic rules (let alone more sophisticated ones), and end up speaking fluently but recklessly.

But how shall we dispose of these people?

On a serious note, will you allow that when the specific time referred to is in fact multiple times, the present perfect may alternately be used?

The customs officer is looking at your passport and questioning you about the entries: "Sir, when have you visited Paris?"
That is, he chooses the perfect tense because he knows instinctively that the simple past would imply one specific visit, and he's looking for a comprehensive list.

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