GRADE 9 English CONSUMER LAWS AND POLICIES – GRAMMAR IN USE:PRESENT AND PAST PERFECT ASPECTS Notes
GRAMMAR IN USE: PRESENT & PAST PERFECT ASPECTS
Topic: Consumer laws and policies (English) — Age: 14 (Kenya)
These notes explain how to use the present perfect and past perfect to talk about consumer laws, rights, complaints and policies. Examples use everyday situations in Kenya (shops, warranties, Consumer Protection offices).
1) PRESENT PERFECT (have/has + past participle)
Form: have/has + past participle
Use:
- To show a past action that affects the present: e.g., consequences now or current state.
- To talk about experiences at an unspecified time (ever / never).
- To describe changes or repeated actions up to now.
Signal words: already, yet, just, ever, never, since, for, recently
Examples (consumer context):
- ✅ "The customer service centre has received many complaints this month." (affects now)
- 📱 "I have bought three phones from that shop." (experience)
- 🧾 "They have already issued a refund for the damaged phone." (action completed, relevant now)
- ❓ "Have you ever reported a faulty product to the Consumer Protection Authority?" (experience)
Negative & Questions:
- Negative: "She has not received the receipt." or "She hasn't received the receipt."
- Question: "Have they checked the warranty?"
2) PAST PERFECT (had + past participle)
Form: had + past participle
Use:
- To show an action that happened before another action in the past.
- To make clear the order of past events.
Signal words: by the time, before, after (when showing order), already (for emphasis)
Examples (consumer context):
- ✅ "By the time the inspector arrived, the shop had already fixed the problem." (fix happened before arrival)
- 📱 "She had bought the phone before the price went down." (buy happened first)
- 🧾 "They had not checked the warranty before they sold the appliance." (negative past perfect)
Note: We use past perfect when we talk about two past events and we want to show which one came first.
3) Compare with simple past
Simple past tells what happened at a specific time in the past. Present perfect connects past with now. Past perfect shows which past action happened earlier.
| Present perfect | "They have received many complaints." (up to now) |
| Past perfect | "They had received complaints before the new rule started." (before another past event) |
| Simple past | "They received complaints yesterday." (specific past time) |
4) Mini practice — fill in the blanks
- "I already the receipt."
- "By the time the manager arrived, the customer the faulty radio."
- "Have you ever a product that stopped working? (experience)"
- "They checked the warranty before selling the phone."
Show answers
- "I have already received the receipt."
- "By the time the manager arrived, the customer had returned the faulty radio."
- "Have you ever bought a product that stopped working?"
- "They had not checked the warranty before selling the phone." (or "They hadn't...")
5) Tips for learners
- If an action matters now or you do not say when it happened, use present perfect: "has/have + past participle."
- When you talk about which event happened first in the past, use past perfect for the earlier action: "had + past participle."
- Use time words to help: since/for/ever/never/just/already/yet (present perfect) — before/by the time/after (past perfect).
- Practice by changing simple past sentences about shops, warranties or complaints into perfect sentences.
Example practice idea: take a news story about a consumer issue in Kenya and underline verbs. Ask: which verbs affect the present? which happened before another past event? Change them into present perfect or past perfect.
Good luck — practise these forms with real examples from Kenyan shops, repair centres and consumer offices. ✅