Help with grammar?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>How do you know when to use the word “have”? Like in the sentence “You *have *made my job easier”, or is it “you made my job easier”? What’s the difference? Or it doesn’t matter?</p>

2

<p>“You made my job easier.” is simple past tense. It can mean that this happened once in the past, or on multiple specific dates in the past, or just generally speaking in the past.</p>

<p>“You have made my job easier.” is present perfect. It also means that making the job easier happened in the past, but there also is the sense that it happened more than once, and it may also indicate that this action is still continuing.</p>

<p>Either one is correct.</p>

<p>If you are a native speaker, trust your gut on when to use these two different forms. Your brain’s internal grammar will know exactly what to do.</p>

3

<p>Both are equally correct, but if you want to be especially thankful and congratulatory the version with “have” and putting the emphasis on “have” is the one to use.</p>

<p>PS I don’t know how anyone learns English - it’s full of very subtle stuff like this.</p>

4

<p>Agree that both are correct but in my opinion, the simple past is intuited generally as a stronger statement.</p>

5

<p>

That applies to any language.</p>

6

<p>^Well, yes and no. English often has multiple grammatically correct ways to get to the same place, while languages like German use more complicated grammar rules instead. I also think because it’s spoken by so many people English evolves faster and what is grammatically incorrect last week, will often be considered okay this week. </p>

<p>That’s my perspective at least from speaking French and German fairly fluently.</p>

7

<p>Spanish is my native language and I think it’s even more full of nuances. I also speak French fluently and dabble in Greek, Arabic and Chinese. I cannot vouch for their nuances.</p>

8

<p>Most people use the simple past tense in spoken English, even when past perfect would be more appropriate. And most speakers will contract the have, into “you’ve”, “I’ve”, etc. If there is an emphasis on “have” in “You have made my job easier.”, it sounds like an agreement to a previous statement.</p>

9

<p>“You made my job easier” seems to imply that the job is done.</p>

<p>“You have made my job easier” seems to imply that the job is ongoing and yet to be done.</p>

<p>That’s my 2 cents.</p>