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Past Perfect
Past Perfect is located before the Past Simple. It's a compound tense: "Yesterday I had prepared my books before going to school."
The verb is composed of:
Subject + Past simple of the verb to have + Past participle
Time expessions:Already,After,Before,By the time,As soon as,When. -
Period: to
Past Continuous
The past Continuous describes an action started in the past that happened at the same time of another actions.
Time expession:While,As. -
Past Simple
The past simple refers to an action which took place in a far past, it's the equivalent of the remote past in italian.
Example:
The last week I watched TV. These actions begun in the past and ended in the past.
The time of the Past Simple is defined, this means that we know when the action happened Negative sentence:
I didn't know what to do
Question sentence:
What did you do yesterday'? If the sentence is negative or is a question you must use the past form of do, did.
After,When,Before. -
Period: to
Present Perfect Continuous
It describes an action than started in the past and it contunes in the present. It is used with 'for' and 'since'
For it's used for the duration of an action an 'since' for a specific time when the action started. [soggetto] + [have/has] + been + [verbo -ing]
e.g.: I have been reading for 1 hour.
I have been reading since 5 p.m. -
PRESENT PERFECT SIMPLE
We use the present perfect simple to talk about actions happened at an unspecified time in the past.
We can also use it to talk about actions that are finished and have consecuences in the present.
It is used with: just, yet, already, ever, never, today, this morning, this week.
To form the present perfect we use the auxiliary "have" plus the verb in the past participle form.
e.g: I have read the book -
PRESENT SIMPLE