The perfect tenses are used to show that an action was completed or that a condition existed before a given time. The perfect tenses are formed using has, have, or had before the past participles i.e.
Verb forms ending in -ed.
Examples:
- Present Perfect Tense:
Ceasar has just finished his homework.
Kalu and Njoroge have now agreed to meet.
- Present Perfect Continuous Tense
Kibet has been working in his shamba for two hours.
We have been swimming in this pool for ten minutes.
- Past Perfect Tense
We had completed the work by the time the supervisor came.
Nobody knew that she had already remarried.
- Past Perfect Continuous Tense
I had been trying to contact him for two hours before he finally appeared.
Mrs. Manuel had been feeling unwell the whole week before she decided to visit a doctor.
- Future Perfect Tense
Agege will have sold his goats by 2 p.m.
By next term, twenty students will have dropped from this school.
- Future Perfect Continuous
The players will have been playing for twenty minutes by the time the President arrives.
By the end of this term, she will have been living with her aunt for five years.
Exercise
Rewrite the following sentences changing the verb into present perfect, present perfect progressive, past perfect, past perfect progressive, future perfect and future perfect progressive tenses.
Make any necessary changes to make the sentences meaningful.
John comes here every year.