English: The Difference Between Pluperfect and Present Perfect Tenses (Example)
I was reading a passage in the latest edition of The Alcalde, the magazine for alumni of The University of Texas. I came across a place where the author made a typo and used "has" instead of "had" ("d" and "s" are right next to each other on the keyboard). This is a perfect example of why the two are different.
I used to teach English to people in Japan at a small private program (not Aeon and that sort of thing). I consider myself to have been a very good teacher because I taught bilingually and my students made a lot of progress. I remember when I taught this, and how I drew time diagrams to explain the difference. Instead of doing that here, I'm just going to explain why the "had"/"has" difference is important to the meaning of a sentence by using this typo as a teaching moment. Original passage (heavily edited for simplification): Quote:
Now, if we change "has" to "had": Quote:
That is a good example of why this matters. Now, I used "pluperfect" and "present perfect" in my thread title. This is because using "had" with the past participle of a verb (e.g., "had read") is called the "pluperfect" tense.** Using "have"/"has" with the past participle of a verb (e.g., "has read") is called the "present perfect" tense. ** The pluperfect tense is also called the "past perfect" tense. |
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