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verbs - Why is 'present perfect' present if it happened in the past? And why is it 'perfect'?


Why is 'present perfect' present if it happened in the past? And why is it 'perfect'?



Answer



Present Perfect is called like that because it combines the present grammatical tense (you have) and the perfect grammatical aspect (done). Compare that to Past Perfect which uses the past tense (you had + done), or the Future Perfect which uses the future "tense" (you will have + done).


As to why it's perfect, the term comes from Latin perfectus, "achieved, finished, completed". Which is quite literally what you have done whenever you have done something.


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