How long you sit here

how long have you sat / been sitting here

Pepa123

Senior Member

I ´ve read (or been reading? ) many threads on the difference between present perfect simple and continuous (progressive?), but I haven´t found the answer. I´d like to offer my students a simple guideline to help them decide where to put simple and where to put continuous form. To make it «easy» could I tell them:

use the simple form in cases in which you would use present simple without mentioning the info «how long»

Could this rough «rule» work?

PaulQ

Senior Member

When you discover this magic method, please let us know. If you can write a short book on the simple answer, then you will become a millionaire overnight and probably win a Nobel Prize.

(ii) An example of an instant verb is «to hit»: «I hit him» is usually understood as «I gave him one blow.» and «I was hitting him» is usually understood as «I hit him many times during a period of time.»

1 ensure that you know the difference between these words.

se16teddy

Senior Member

Before you get to the stage of #1, you have to decide why you are using the present perfect at all.

1) Is it a past action or event with a present result? Including
— a life experience that makes you the person you are today, such as I have read many threads on this
— a cumulative total such as this is the tenth time I have done this
This sense always uses the simple form.

2) Is it an event that occurred more or less continuously or continually over a past period continuing to the present period, such as I have been reading many threads about this over the last few days? I think that in this sense the continuous/progressive form is always possible, but it can optionally be simplified to the simple form in the rather complicated circumstances Paul has discussed, provided the time period is specified in the sentence. Your students may prefer to stick with the progressive form when composing English; and I suspect that the nuances will normally be irrelevant to school translations from English into Czech!

There are terms here that may need further explanation, such as present period, continual and continuous.

Pepa123

Senior Member

Before you get to the stage of #1, you have to decide why you are using the present perfect at all.

1) Is it a past action or event with a present result? Including
— a life experience that makes you the person you are today, such as I have read many threads on this
— a cumulative total such as this is the tenth time I have done this
This sense always uses the simple form.

2) Is it an event that occurred more or less continuously or continually over a past period continuing to the present period, such as I have been reading many threads about this over the last few days? I think that in this sense the continuous/progressive form is always possible, but it can optionally be simplified to the simple form in the rather complicated circumstances Paul has discussed, provided the time period is specified in the sentence. Your students may prefer to stick with the progressive form when composing English; and I suspect that the nuances will normally be irrelevant to school translations from English into Czech!

There are terms here that may need further explanation, such as present period, continual and continuous.