UNIT TWELVE The present perfect tense Use of the present perfect 1 The present perfect (‘passato prossimo’) is one of the two most used past tenses of the indicative in Italian (the other is the imperfect (‘imperfetto’)). The present perfect is often used like the English present perfect (e.g. ‘I  have seen  it’, ‘She  has gone  home’) to state that an action has happened in the past, but that its e ff ects are still lasting in the present. However, in Northern Italy and in the language of the media, it is also equivalent to the English simple past (e.g. ‘I  saw  it’, ‘She  went  home’), referring to actions which happened in a more distant past and have no immediate consequences in the present. Indeed, it more often corresponds to the English simple past than to the English present perfect. In other words, in Italian, the di ff erence between present perfect (‘passato prossimo’) and simple past (‘passato remoto’) is not always marked, and it is always possible to use the former: 2 The present perfect is a compound tense and is formed, as in English, with the present tense of the auxiliary verb followed by the past participle of the verb: Napoleone è morto il 5 maggio 1821. L’estate scorsa siamo andati in vacanza sul lago di Garda. Nina è nata in Russia. L’anno scorso, mi hanno regalato una mountain bike. Napoleon died on 5 May 1821. Last summer we went to Lake Garda for our/a holiday. Nina was born in Russia. Last year, they gave me a mountain bike. Ho visto  un bel  fi lm. Ha telefonato  Marco. Sono rimasto  a casa. Anna  è uscita. Sono andati  in piscina? I saw/ have seen  a lovely  fi lm. Marco phoned/ has phoned . I stayed/ have stayed  at home. Anna went out/ has gone  out. Did they go/ Have  they  gone  to the swimming pool?