Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: simple past and present perfect the eternal dilemma

I have been teaching English for a long time,  I have been experiencing
lots of spoken and written English through books, magazines, the
Internet, films, TV shows, soap operas, friends from many
English-speaking countries and I think I can master tenses pretty well.
And yet.... And yet when I'm marking tests where students have to
choose whether to use the present perfect or the simple past I still
feel baffled in certain cases.
Take for example: "He (have) _________ several girlfriends but he
(never get) __________ married" (this is taken form a short passage
that I wrote about a semi-imaginary character, so as to provide
context). My solutions would have been "He has had several girlfriends
but he has never got married" as there is no time reference in the past
and the clear consequence in the present is that he has experience with
women but no matrimonial ties.
Yet when i find "He had several girlfriends but he never got married" I
don't think I should mark it wrong, or even when I find mixed tenses
"He had several girlfriends but he has never got married".... should I?
My problem is not to check the rules again. I know them!!! It's more a
question of feeling.... What would you do, oh native speakers?
Thanks
Claudia

Oh and yet another thing.... the choice between the simple and the
continuous form.... Is it correct to "feel right" about "he has done
that ever since" and he "has lived there since then" (as an alternative
to the continuous forms "he has been doing" and "he has been living")
but NOT "they have gone out for a year" as opposed to "they have been
going out for a year" ?
Why oh why did I choose to teach????
Thanks again
Claudia

 "He had several girlfriends but he has never got married".... should I?
I'm not a native speaker, but let me try to tell you my point of view. In my 
opinion there are two acceptable solutions:
1) He has had several girlfriends but he has never got married
2) He has had several girlfriends but he never got married.
The first verb describes a situation which includes both the past and the 
present, therefore you have no choice: simple past wouldn't fit; the second 
verb is used together with "never", so probably you should use the 
indeterminate past, i.e. the present perfect.
However, for some reason I feel the solution 2 is not really wrong, maybe 
because getting married, unlike being married, is an instantaneous action, 
so it can't span over both the past and the present.
And now, I'm waiting for some clarifications too :-)
--
Xelloss 

I appreciate you are addressing to native speakers only, however if I may
stick my oar in:
"He has had several girlfriends but has never got married" probably the
most appropriate for the context.
"He had several girlfriends but never got married" suggests that the guy
is dead or not interested now to get married.
"He has had several girlfriends but never got married" not very correct
but you may still hear that.
"He had several girlfriends but has never got married" same as above,
unless it means that the guy used to date women some time ago, but now is
gay and is free to enter into civil partnership with his boyfriend because
he never got married with any woman.
"They have gone out for a year" and "they have been going out for a year"
are pretty much the same to me and not worth losing sleep over it.
In my very humble opinion, the only time where there is a substantial
difference between the Italian and English tenses is in the translation of
this phrase (and similar):
Da quanto tempo sei qui? sono qui da 5 minuti, sono qui dalle 4.
How long have you been here? I have been here for 5 minutes. I have been
here since 4 o'clock.
O sono troppo riduttivo?
antonio
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 don't think I should mark it wrong,
That's correct if, for instance, the excerpt is taken from a narrative set 
in the past. If in the passage there were references to the current 
situation of the character... uhmmm... that would be totally different, 
IMHO. Perhaps all this is quite obvious, but I still wanted to point it out.
:-)
Tschüss,
Enrico il Pentolaio.
--
"What can I say? I'm the world's best actor." "Second best"
My still-in-construction website: 
www.pentolaio.tk
 


 Yep, i know that, Enrico, but in this case the guy is supposed to be
still alive...
I thank everyone for their meaningful replies, which confirm my idea; I
would have used a present perfect in both cases. And yet I still feel I
need a native speaker to tell me what he/she feels.
Marking is really a terrible experience.... :-O
Claudia

 
Just to "throw a spanner in the works" the phrase could just as commonly 
used conversationaly as: "He has had several girlfriends but he never 
gets married" This might be "gotten married" in the USA ;0)
"They have gone out for a year" sounds a little ambigious and would 
imply more of a romantic relationship as  "they have gone out together 
for a year", in the U.K. at least.
Pip pip
-- 
Chris Notton
Replace "nospam" with my surname to reply by email
Sostituisca il "nospam" con il mio cognome per rispondere
}<////(*>

 Marking is really a terrible experience.... :-O
Per curiosità, alla fine l'hai segnato come errore o hai lasciato passare?



 L'ho segnato; ho  avuto occasione di chiedere anche al madrelingua che
fa qualche ora nella nostra scuola ... mi ha detto di segnarlo. Se
fosse stato in un testo scritto da loro però avrei messo solo
un'ondina. Mi incuriosirebbe sapere come si comportano i correttori di
FCE e CPE . L'ho già detto credo e lo ripeto, non so cosa darei per
avere anche solo un giorno con uno di loro, per carpirne qualche
segreto! Nessuno ne conosce?
Ciao
Claudia

 Yet when i find "He had several girlfriends but he never got married"
With a few extra words, e.g. "He had several girlfriends when he was
younger,
but he never got married", I think it would sound ok.

 FCE e CPE .
A me invece piacerebbe vedere cos'è che ho sbagliato così terribilmente 
nello scritto del CAE. Va be', ormai è acqua passata.


 nello scritto del CAE. Va be', ormai è acqua passata.
Hai preso il teacher's book corrispondente al tuo libro di past papers?
Non costa molto. Non credo di avere un teacher's book per il CAE o
il CPE, ma in uno per il FCE vedo che considerano:
Content (fai quello che ti e' stato detto?)
Accuracy (errori veri e propri)
Range (cerchi di usare parole/espressioni "difficili"?)
Organisation and Cohesion (paragrafi, titoli di sezioni, ecc.)
Appropriacy of Register and Format
Target reader (quello che hai scritto e' adatto al "pubblico"
descritto nell'esercizio?)
C'e' un esempio nel libro di un tema a prima vista abbastanza "ben
fatto" che prende 
2/5 perche' non risponde alla domanda.

 fatto" che prende 2/5 perche' non risponde alla domanda.
Beh certo, se non rispondi a tutte le domande ti penalizzano. Pero' fra uno 
che risponde a tutto ma scrive da cane e uno che scrive bene ma non risponde 
a tutto, un po' di differenza c'è... peccato che in qualsiasi scritto 
l'aderenza alla consegna sia fondamentale.


 No, ma ormai non mi serve più.
A questo punto intendo quello per il CPE, ovviamente.

 2/5 perche' non risponde alla domanda.
Per quel che mi riguarda ho familiarità con una pluralità di griglie
ma credo che non ci sia niente come un altro umano che ti fa vedere e
ti spiega come corregge ....  Questo vale per me come insegnante che
odia dare valutazioni (perchè è una grande fatica morale...)
Per ciò che riguarda Enrico, non c'è niente che possa sopperire al
vedere la sua prova insieme a chi gliel'ha corretta, o vederne almeno
le annotazioni. Ma questo è ahimè impossibile...
Ciao
Claudia

 but he never got married", I think it would sound ok.
Yes I would have agreed but there were no such extra words.
Thanks Adam!
Tata
Claudia


It would be neither in the US.
"He has participated in many drinking parties, but he never gets
drunk".
"He has worked in many dairies, but he never drinks milk."
"He has worked at various jobs in fabric mills, but he never dyes".
:>)
But not "He has been shot many times, but he never dies".
"He never gets married" sounds like he should be getting married
regularly, but marriage is not normally a recurring phenomenon, just
like dying (not to be confused with dyeing, which can occur often).
He never gets drunk.
He never eats vegetables.
But never "he never gets married".
There could be one exception. "In the 'Batman' movies, Batman always
has a girl friend, but he never gets married".
Joe from Massachusetts