have/has question

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hello, I really need some help on these ones:

(1) ‘‘The owners (threaten) --------- to sell the shop ---- years.’’

(2) ‘‘I (wonder) ------------ a while now what (become) ------------- of them.’’

(3) ‘‘We (already see) ------------- all the sights and my wife (buy) --------- lots of souvenirs.’’

[color=blue]These are sentences from my tense exercise book. Here is the task for (1) and (2):

[size=117]Put the verbs in Present Perfect or Present Perfect Continuous and add [color=red]for or [color=red]since, if it’s needed. [/size]

[color=blue]And for the (3) —>

[size=117]Put the verbs in appropriate form in Present Tense.[/size]

The right answers are:

(1) ‘’ The owners [color=red]has threatened to sell the shop for years.’’
(2) ‘’ I have been wondering for a while now what [color=red]has become of them.’’
(3) ‘’ We have already seen all the sights and my wife [color=red]have bought lots of souvenirs.’’

I don’t and can’t understand why in the sentences where it must be he/she HAS it’s HAVE. Please someone explain it to me.

2
  1. The owners have threatened to sell the shop for years. (multiple owners = have)
  2. Correct (I don’t have an easy explanation, sorry)
  3. We have already seen all the sights, and my wife has bought lots of souvenirs. (one wife = has)
3

  1. The “correct” answer is not correct. Use ‘have’ with ‘owners’ (plural) and ‘has’ with ‘owner’ (singular).
    The owners have threatened to sell the shop for years.
    The owner has threatened to sell the shop for years.

  2. I agree with the correct answer. We often use the Present Perfect to talk about change that has happened over a period of time…

  3. The ‘correct’ answer is not written in the present tense. In fact, the sentence would sound quite off in the present tense:
    my wife has bought…

Either its a very poor test with incorrect answers, or someone has transcribed the questions incorrectly.
We are already seeing all the sights and my wife is buying lots of souvenirs.

4

Thank you lady Beeesneees ! Now I get it! :slight_smile:

5

What does “We have already seen all the sights and my wife has bought…” imply?

Why is it off using the present perfect here?

6

There is nothing wrong with “We have already seen… etc.” - it is grammatically sound. However, it is not present tense. The instructions given were that the sentence should be written in the present tense.

"We are already seeing all the sights’ sounds strange. It is unlikely that the speaker/writer is actually involved in seeing some of the sights as he is speaking/writing. It sounds far more natural to say ‘We have already seen some of the sights…’ (We have seen some. The implication is that we will see others later.)