had/have moved in

Re: had/have moved in
The Johns bought (simple past) a house (when?) and have moved in (perfect tense).

They bought a house at some unspecified time in the past and have completed moving in.

Better: The Johns have bought a house in our street and moved in this week.

The Johns bought (simple past) a house and had (past perfect) moved in.

They bought a house at some time in the past and moved in before some other event took place.

The Johns bought a house in November 1921 and had moved in by the end of December.

You need to study present perfect and past perfect tenses.

also see http://www.able2know.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=107633

My apologies for having posting twice. However, I did make a check and did not find the post, whcih was why it was reposted.

However, your explanation seems to be slghtly different from Contrex's. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Contrex added context and it appears that the sentence with 'had' cannnot stand alone - it needs more context. Again correct me if I'm wrong.

Many thanks.

i think contrex is right --

"The Johns bought a house and had moved in" needs more information to be correct...

Since Region Philbis has seen fit to draw attention to it, I feel I may state that his explanation in the other thread is, I afraid, neither informative nor helpful.

I reproduce his or her effort here for dissection:-





Well, I rather think that Yoong Liat knew that when he posted first of all.



Not even incorrect, beyond that. There are two verbs. "Bought" is the simple past tense, and "have moved" is the present perfect.



As above, except that "had moved" is the past perfect.

Brief description of present and past tenses...

(1) The "present tense"

* present simple, which is used to describe both habits and or routines (I eat breakfast every morning at 6:30. I go to work every day), and general facts or the truth (The earth revolves around the sun);

We use the present simple for thoughts and feelings. (Ex. I think so, I like it.)

* present progressive or present continuous, which is used to describe events happening now, e.g. I am reading text.

* present perfect, which is used to describe events or actions that have been completed with respect to the present, e.g. I have read numerous web pages before this one;

* present perfect progressive, which is used to describe events or actions that have begun at some point in the past and continue through the present, e.g. I have been reading this text for some time now.

(2)The "past tense"

The past tense is a verb tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past.

In English, there are two distinct types of past tense:

1. Present perfect (see perfect tense)
2. Preterite (or simple past)

Each of these may also be found in the progressive (continuous) aspect.

Simple past is formed for regular verbs by adding -ed to the root of a word. Example: He walked to the store. A negation is produced by adding did not and the verb in its infinitive form. Example: He did not walk to the store. Question sentences are started with did as in Did he walk to the store?

Simple past is used for describing acts that have already been concluded and whose exact time of occurrence is known. Furthermore, simple past is used for retelling successive events. That is why it is commonly used in storytelling.

Past progressive is formed by using the adequate form of to be and the verb's present participle: He was going to church. By inserting not before the main verb a negation is achieved. Example: He was not going to church. A question is formed by prefixing the adequate form of to be as in Was he going?.

Past progressive is used for describing events that were just about to occur when a new event happened. The already occurring event is presented in past progressive, the new one in simple past. Example: We were sitting in the garden when the thunderstorm started. Use is similar to other languages' imperfect tense.

Present perfect simple is formed by combining have/has with the main verb's past participle form: I have arrived. A negation is produced by inserting not after have/has: I have not arrived. Questions in present perfect are formulated by starting a sentence with have/has: Has she arrived?

Present perfect simple is used for describing a past action's effect on the present: He has arrived. Now he's here.

Present perfect progressive is formed by prefixing have/has before the grammatical particle been and the verb's present participle form: We have been waiting. A negation is expressed by including not between have/has and been: They have not been eating. As with present perfect simple, for forming a question, have/has is put at the beginning of a sentence: Have they been eating?

Present perfect progressive is used for describing an event that has been going on until the present and may be continued in the future. It also puts emphasis on how an event has occurred. Very often since and for mark the use of present perfect progressive: I have been waiting for 5 hours / I have been waiting since 3 o'clock.

Furthermore, there is another version of past tense possible: past perfect, similar to other languages' pluperfect tense.

Past perfect simple is formed by combining the simple past form of to have with the simple past form of the main verb: We had shouted. A negation is achieved by including not after had: You had not spoken. Questions in past perfect always start with had: Had he laughed?

Past perfect simple is used for describing secluded events that have occurred before something else followed. The event that is closer to the present is given in simple past tense: After we had visited our relatives in New York, we flew back to Toronto.

Past perfect progressive is formed by had, the grammatical particle been and the present participle of the main verb: You had been waiting. For negation, not is included before been: I had not been waiting. A question sentence is formed by starting with had: Had she been waiting?

If emphasis is put on the duration of a concluded action of the past, since and for are signal words for past perfect progressive: We had been waiting at the airport since the 9 p.m. flight. / They had been waiting for 3 hours now.

Actually, both sentences are grammatically correct. But, as far as I can see, all you are trying to convey here is the information that the Johns are now living in their new house. In that case, all you need say is "The Johns bought a new house and moved in" but that first "have" becomes kind of redundant. To say that the Johns "had moved in: implies an event in the past which may no longer apply now.; In other words, if you say it like that, there is an implication that the Johns may not necessarily be living in that new house any more. That's what using the past perfect tense does to a sentence.

Now where is The Gus when YL needs him??????

Thanks, everybody, for the help rendered.

The Johns bought a house and have moved in.

"(have) bought" and "Have moved" are both in the same time (the past).
It is a simple past sentence . . .


The Johns bought a house and had moved in.

(this sentence implies that they (had) bought their house and (had) moved in when . . . . . it burned down! The fist part is an into for another part (phrase) that will give it a sense of time.