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This came across when I was browsing an Australia gaming website, this is the whole sentence:

"In the past, Hideo Kojima has been a regular at the PlayStation Awards when his games have won."

So I'm wondering why they're using the Present Perfect with "in the past" in there, because from my understanding, Present Perfect is used when you say something that is still related to the present-days.

Therefore, I think that sentence should have been: "In the past, Hideo Kojima was a regular at the PlayStation Awards when his games had won." Is that corrent?

Thank you so much for your time!

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  • I agree. That's a grammatical error.
    – William
    Commented Feb 23, 2016 at 22:14
  • @William : Would you please be more specific about it? I'm assuming that my fixing would be more correct, right?
    – johnchae
    Commented Feb 26, 2016 at 14:48

1 Answer 1

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I believe any of perfect, simple past or past perfect might be used here.

If it were the perfect the implication might be that in the past meant the recent past.

But I also think that the two tenses need to match. i.e. one of the following is needed:

1.In the past, HK has been a regular...when his games have won.

2.In the past, HK was a regular...when his games won.

3.In the past HK had been a regular...when his games had won.

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