HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN HERE 2 ?

ENGLISH UNDER THE HOOD
TOPIC 1: The present perfect Tense vs. the simple Past Tense
Let's take a look at the two most common past tenses in English: the present perfect tense and the simple past tense.

 Present perfect                            Simple past
I have spoken                                I spoke
You have spoken                          You spoke
he, she, it Spoken                          he, she, it spoke
we have spoken                             we spoke
they have spoken                           they spoke

 As you can see, the present perfect tense is formed with the verb to have and the past participle of the main verb, in this case, spoken. The simple past tense is just the past form of the verb, which in this case is spoke. These tenses are used a bit differently. The present perfect tense expresses an event that happened in the past when the exact time is not known, or when there's a result or a connection being made to the present, or when the time reference is still unfinished, as in so far this week or up to now, or during my entire life. The simple past tense, on the other hand, expresses an action that happened when a specific finished time is given, such as yesterday or last week or in 1993. Sometimes these are interchangeable, depending on what the speaker wishes emphasize. Here are a few examples.
Petr has returned from his trip.(No specific time is given or is important, and the speaker is emphasizing that peter is now home)
I finished reading the novel last night (Last night indicates a specific time in the past.)
Has Pam ever been to New York? ("ever" means "during her entire life".)
I worked five days last week ("Last week" is finished time.)
So far this week I've worked three days. ("this week" is unfinished time.)

TOPIC 2: verbs with irregular forms in the past and present perfect tenses

A lot of common verbs have irregular simple past and past participle forms. Here are some of the more common ones You'll also find a list of all of the most important irregular verbs.

 present              past              past participle

 be                      was/were        been
begin                 began             begun
bring                  brought          brought
do                     did                  done
eat                     ate                  eaten
go                      went                gone
have                  had                   had
know                 knew                known
see                     saw                  seen
sing                   sang                 sung
speak                 spoke              spoken
take                   took                 taken
write                  wrote               written

 TOPIC 3: using for and since with the present perfect and simple past tenses

 use since when a specific point in time is given. use/or when a period of time, rather than a specific point in time is given.

 since...          for...
yesterday      one day
last week      a week
last month     three months

 Richard has lived in San Diego since 1983.
Richard has lived in San Diego for twenty years.

 Notice that you can use for and since withe either the simple past tense or the present perfect tense, depending on whether or not the action is still happening.

 I've worked for red Enterprise for two years. 'i still work there.)
I worked for red Enterprise for two years. (now i work somewhere else.)

 ....

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