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Verb Tenses - Lesson 107

Present Perfect - Irregular Verbs

Lesson 107 - learn the present perfect with irregular verbs: how to form it, when to use it, clear examples and a short video from a British English teacher.

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How to form and use the present perfect

How To Form The Present Perfect Simple with irregular verbs:

1st Column
Compliment		 2nd Column
Past Simple Affirmitive		 3rd Column
Past Participle
eat ate eaten
become became become

To form the Present Perfect Simple affirmative take a subject (I, my friend...) and after that put the auxiliary verb have in the corresponding form of the present simple ( I have..., my friend has...) and then put the past participle, the word from column 3 of the irregular verb list (became, eaten). Put this all together and we have: I have become. My friend has eaten. To make negatives put not after the auxiliary have. I have not become. My friend has not eaten. Note in the negative we continue to use the past participle from column 3 unlike negatives for the past simple. To form questions change the position of the subject and the auxiliary verb have. This gives us: Have I Become? Has my friend eaten? Again note that we continue to use the past participle from column 3 unlike negatives for the past simple. If we wish we can place a question word before our interrogative form. What have I become? How much has my friend eaten? The table below shows the form of the past simple for irregular verbs:

Affirmative Negative Interrogative
I have eaten I have not eaten Have I eaten?
You have eaten You have not eaten Have you eaten?
He has eaten He has not eaten Has he eaten?
She has eaten She has not eaten Has she eaten?
It has eaten It has not eaten Has it eaten?
We have eaten We have not eaten Have we eaten?
You have eaten You have not eaten Have you eaten?
They have eaten They have not eaten Have they eaten?

The following video explains how to form the Present Perfect Simple with irregular verbs:

Watch the video lesson

Video transcript

How to form the Present Perfect Simple with irregular verbs. It's easy. It's the same as with the regular ones. You take a subject I, then your auxiliary verb have, in the present simple and then you use the past participle. For irregular verbs, that's the word in column 3. Eat, ate eaten. Column 3. Number 3. Fight, fought, fought. Number 3. OK. So, I have eaten. You have eaten. To make negatives put not after the have. I have not eaten. We still use the word from column 3, eaten. To make questions. Have you eaten? The word again from column 3. So, this is easy to construct and remember it's different from the past simple. It's different from column 2 and we use it in a different way. So, to make the past... sorry, to make the present perfect simple with irregular verbs, I have and then the past participle, eaten. In the negative I have not eaten. For questions, have I eaten? So... that's simple, I am sure you understood it clearly. What's more difficult is when to use it. See you soon.

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