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Can we use the present perfect tense with past time expressions if we are not telling stories or talking about the past, but if it is important to let know that an action happened at the exact time in the past?

For example:

  • We can return you part of the money only if you bought it last month.
  • I have bought it last month!
  • When have you left your country?
  • I have left it in 2012, 2015, 2016...
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    This post illustrates how English language learners are presented with a broken model of how the perfect aspect works in English, one that fails to account for actual use and which would make no sense to a native speaker.
    – tchrist
    Nov 9, 2021 at 13:35
  • No: the present perfect more or less excludes time adjuncts referring to the past, so your first example is ungrammatical. The second is possible if you are still living in that country.
    – BillJ
    Nov 9, 2021 at 15:07

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