Towards Better Understanding of Present Perfect Characteristics and Usage – Professional Insight and Suggestion

Abstract

Taking into consideration delicate nature of translation, and the fact that the process could easily trigger (both positive and negative) language transfer, this paper aims to shed some light on the status of the Present Perfect Tense in the process of translating from Serbian into English. Relying on the corpora of data comprising 113 sets of sentences, translated by students majoring in English, we tried to identify how frequent the usage of Present Perfect is. Apart from that – we aimed to determine which verb forms (tenses used in context) in Serbian eventually become Present Perfect in English and whether decisions of such a kind are consistent. The qualitative analysis proved the evasive nature of English Present Perfect; namely, it was shown that, despite some lexical hints used in Serbian sentences, the usage of Present Perfect was inconsistent. In conclusion, the paper suggests the implementation of collaborative teaching practices, with the goal of activating critical thinking, and contrastive analysis and thus improving students’ understanding, as well as their active usage of acquired grammatical notions.