The Present and Past Perfect: Their Existence Made Manifest

Okay, now, I know you're all saying, "Oh, no, he's giving us grammar! Yeah, I know. You hate it. It's boring. It's gross. But, it's really, really important. If you don't know grammar, the best you can hope to do is learn a few phrases by rote. But if you understand the grammar, it's like knowing the rules to the game. You can say anything you want to if you know how. Besides, grammar isn't all that tough. As I usually do in my articles, we'll take a look at the two tenses in English first.

Present Perfect

I have gone to Japan 25 times.

Have is the "helping verb" and gone is the past participle of the verb to go. Their powers combined, they form the present perfect tense. The only real thing you need to remember for the sake of learning this construction in Japanese is what information the present perfect conveys. When you use the present perfect, you are speaking in the present tense, but about an action that is completed (or perfect). Maybe you'd just like to see some examples. The following are all examples of the present perfect:

I have seen Jurassic Park a million times.
Have you ever eaten catfish?
He has gone to school all his life.
I've gone weeks without eating before!
She's been a model for two years now.

Okay, easy, right? You know this stuff. It's just giving a name to a construction you're already plenty familar with. Now, how do we do this in Japanese?

Well, actually, there are two ways. First, the easy one. This is the one everyone learns. The pattern is "past tense verb"-koto ga arimasu. For example, Itta koto ga arimasu, "I have gone before." Or, Yonda koto ga arimasu ka?, "Have you ever read?" I'm not going to spend much time on this because it's in every textbook on the planet.

What I want to talk about is the other way. The secret way. I'm willing to bet that most students of Japanese don't even know that they're using the present perfect. You know why? Because it looks exactly like the present progressive tense. Yup. In fact, it wasn't until just recently that I realized what was happening. Check it out:

Ano eiga wo mite iru? Are you seeing that movie?

You know this. It's the "-te form" of a verb plus iru, right? Present progressive. WRONG!!! Well, I mean, you're right, but in this case, the sentence is actually the disguised present perfect. It should be translated, Have you seen that movie?

Maybe you've already seen this. I learned about it when I was in Japan. I just thought it was kind of cute. Every time I heard someone say something like, Hanako-chan wa mou ano hon wo yonde iru, I translated, "Hanako is already reading the book." Then I chuckled to myself, thought, "Isn't Japanese quaint?", and re-translated it into what it really is, "Hanako has already read the book."

WRONG WRONG WRONG! Japanese is not quaint! Well, maybe it is, but this isn't an example of it! Let us look closely at the grammar, comparing it with English just for fun.

First, remember that the "-te form" allows you to put a whole bunch of verbs in succession. You can say, Kyou, terebi wo mite, shukudai wo shite, bangohan wo tsukutte, tabete, neta. "Today I watched TV, did my homeword, made dinner, ate, and went to sleep."

This is important: Sometimes, all the "-te form" stuff is in the past, even though the final verb is in the present. Example: Raamen wo katte kite, soshite ima koko ni iru. "I went and got some ramen, and now I'm here." Okay. The first part is in the past, but the last verb is in the present.

Next, remember that the present perfect tense allows you to speak in the present about a completed (perfect) action.

Now let's look at the other sentence again. Hanako-san wa mou ano hon wo yonde iru. Now, we do surgery. We'll take out the middle, so that we're left with Hanako-san wa iru. What does it mean? It means, "Hanako is," as in, "Hanako thinks, therefore she is. She exists. Now we put the middle back in. Hanako-san wa mou ano hon wo yonde SPACE iru. "Hanako already read the book, and she is." = "Hanako is in a state of already having read the book." = "Hanako has already read the book."

How about a few more examples:

Bangohan desu yo. Te wo aratte iru?
Kanojo wa mada Amerika ni modotte inai.
Saikin, Seiji-san wo mite iru?

It's dinner-time. Have you washed your hands?
She hasn't returned to America yet.
Have you seen Seiji lately?

These examples should be pretty easy to understand. However, since we have two ways of making the present perfect, the obvious question arises, What is the difference between the two?

Well, the perfect that uses "past tense verb"-koto ga aru feels more like a statement about one's experiences in life. When used in a question, it almost always is translated into English with the word ever. Have you ever climbed Mount Fuji? The other construction, the one we've been talking about in this article, is much more immediate. You can tell by looking at the above examples that we're not talking about life experiences. That's the main difference, and it holds true for the past perfect, too.

Pretty cool, eh? So now you know how to be sneaky and use the secret present perfect. What about the past perfect?

The Past Perfect

Well, it's pretty much the same story with the past perfect. Not much to it, really. Just change the last iru into a past tense ita. Voila! You've done it. Want to see some examples? That's what I thought. Since these things will make a lot more sense in context, let's make up a little story. I'll use both the past and perfect present.

95 nen no natsu ni Nihon ni itta. Sono mae, 2 nen kan nihongo wo benkyou shite ita kara, mou jouba na dodai wo motte ita. Ima made wa, ikkai dake Nihon ni itte iru. Demo mata ikitai desu ne.

I went to Japan in the summer of '95. I had studied Japanese for 2 years before that, so I already had a good foundation. I've still only been to Japan once. But I'd like to go again.

I guess that was a pretty pathetic story. But it had two good examples in it. The main hope of this article is to make you realize that when you use what looks like the present progressive as the present perfect, you really are, in fact, using the present perfect. (Ditto for past progressive/perfect.) Don't get stumbled by all these grammatical terms. The main thing I'm hoping is that when you got to the part about Hanako already reading the book, you said, "Ooooohhhhhhh, I see. That's pretty cool."

So be sneaky. Be sly. Use the secret perfect tenses. And don't forget the code-phrase: "I owe everything I know about Japanese to Brian." :-)

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