A very common mistake is to hear people say: “Have you gone to Shenzhen before?” The correct question is: “Have you been to Shenzhen before?” Let’s look at the difference between ‘been to’ and ‘gone to’. ‘Been to’ is used when talking about a place you or others have visited and returned from. Use it to talk about a recent one-off visit or a general experience. It is used in the present perfect tense without a specific time reference. For example, you would say: “Have you been to the bank yet?” “I have been to the bank already.” “Have you been to Singapore lately?” “I have been to Singapore recently.” Note that if you talk in the past simple tense, you should use ‘go to’. In this situation, you would include a specific past time reference. For example: “Did you go to Singapore last week?” “I went to Singapore last week.” ‘Gone to’ is used to talk about someone who has left but not yet returned. Therefore, you would usually use it to talk about a third person as they have left and not yet returned. For example: “Where’s Janice? Has she gone to the bank?” “Rachel has gone to Shenzhen. She’ll be back tomorrow.”
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 05:41:16 +0000
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