Check out today’s Teatime Titbit: The final furlong – help with the Present Perfect 2.
With Halloween & All Saints’ Day behind us, we’re entering the last furlong (Achtelmeile) of 2018 with the finishing line just around the corner. Time will race by to the photo finish on New Year’s Eve.
How has your 2018 been so far? Have you accomplished (all) your goals (Ziele erreichen) for 2018 yet? I hope you have already achieved some of your goals for 2018. Which goals haven’t you (quite) achieved yet?
Did the 3 signal words for Present Perfect (Past Present – Dave’s version) become clear above?
- so far (bisher/lang) – How has 2018 been for you so far?
- yet (bis jetzt) – Have you already achieved your goals for 2018?
- already (bereits) – I hope you have already achieved some of my goals for 2018.
2018 started in the past and we’re still in 2018 so we’re talking about what has happened between 1. Jan and 2 Nov. The 3 words often work together, check out the parent/kid scenario
Parents “Have you finished all your homework yet”?
Kid “Yes, I’ve already finished maths & French but haven’t finished English yet?
Parent “How much have you done so far?”
Kid “Not much so far – I’ll finish it later”.
As a very simplified rule of thumb way to remember which to use when, here’s my KISS version – ‘yet’ is mostly used in questions and negative statements/answers, ‘already’ in positive statements/answers and ‘so far’ in questions and negative statements/answers.
Hope it helps.