The Present Perfect is the first big challenge for students of English. There are two types of pitfall–a desire to simplify complex grammar ideas down to just one principle, and an equally strong desire to translate using structures as similar as possible to the mother tongue.

But the Present Perfect also provides some useful solutions. In this lesson, I talk about the difference between indefinite and definite time. These are useful concepts that allow us to break away from a past-present-future notion of grammatical time. That in turn will be useful to show how we communicate through grammar.

Presentation edited and revised 7 June 2012. In particular, the Introduction to the Present Perfect is now a separate presentation.