Please help -- Grammar Question?

Question

a) I have read this novel.
b) I read it about 7 years ago.

Both of these sentences refer to the same event. Why are two different tenses (simple past and present perfect) used? What is the difference between (a) and (b)?

Thanks!

Thanks for the responses! I have one more question about this -

Why is the same tense used for both of these sentences in other languages?

Answer 1

The difference between past tense and present perfect is a subtle one and one that students have difficulty grasping, so don't feel bad. In sentence A, you are refering to your current state of being, you have read the novel. In sentence B, you are refering no so much to your current state, although the subject of the sentence is "I", but you are refering to an event that happened in the past.
The present perfect tense uses the past tense to refer to a condition in the present.
I hope this helps.

First, I think some languages do have simple past tense and present perfect. I think in French, most is the present perfect, but I believe they have a simple past. If a language doesn't have this difference, then you can say that it isn't as precise in this area as english, or that english is simply splitting hairs in this area.
French does have a tense called the passe simple.

Answer 2

Not passive. The subject performed the action of reading, so it is active.


I read it seven years ago.
The Simple Past expresss an action started and finished at a specific time in the past. Sometimes, the speaker may not actually mention the specific time, but they do have one specific time in mind.

Weirdly, "I have read this novel" is a tense called Present Perfect. It is formed like this:
[has/have + past participle]

have + read

We use the Present Perfect to say that an action happened at an unspecified time before now. The exact time is not important. You CANNOT use the Present Perfect with specific time expressions such as: yesterday, one year ago, last week, when I was a child, when I lived in Japan, at that moment, that day, one day, etc. We CAN use the Present Perfect with unspecific expressions such as: ever, never, once, many times, several times, before, so far, already, yet, etc.

or

We often use the Present Perfect to talk about change that has happened over a period of time.

Answer 3

A is a passive sentence, "I have read" can be passive past or present perfect, depending on the context. If the person has just finished the novel and is holding it, its present perfect, if they point to a title and say it, that means its past passive. This sentence is also ambiguous, as with most passive perfects.

The second is perfect past (also simple past, but its best to define it as perfect past, since there are example where they're differant).