|
Now we're gonna learn a new verb tense. It's one of the most perfect
tenses of them all, namely the present perfect! Many languages do not
have a tense similar to this one, but English does, and that's good,
because this tutorial is in English. Some examples of the present
perfect tense in English are:
- I have been to Norway.
- Have you seen that movie?
- He has never skied before.
As you see, it consists in two verbs that are combined:
have/has +
another verb
"Have" is called the auxiliary, while the other verb is the main
verb. The main verb is the one that carries the meaning.
The meaning of the present perfect tense is very similar to the
past tense, which we learned in the previous lesson. Someone who
is not totally proficient in English might have problems
distinguishing the meanings of these two sentences:
- I went to Norway.
- I have been to Norway.
Both of them refer to the past, so the difference is
challenging
to explain, but it has to do with the fact that the former
focuses on the moment when the action was carried out, while the
latter expresses that this past event has relevancy in the
present as well.
In Norwegian, the auxiliary verb in the present perfect is
the present form of å ha: har. This gives us:
har +
another verb
The form of the main verb, as was the case with the past
tense, must be learned, since there are three different suffixes
depending on the verb. BUT...it's very easy if you already know
the past tense, as you will see in the very next moment!
|
