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While both been and gone are past participles of the verb 'to go,' their usage differs significantly in context. Been is generally used to indicate that someone has visited a place and returned. In contrast, gone implies that the person has left for a destination and has not yet returned.
We form the present perfect simple of go with: Subject + have/has + been/gone. to New York. to the supermarket. We usually use short forms (I've, You've, He's, She's, We've, They've) when we are speaking and in informal writing.
- Gone
- ‘Been’
- ‘Gone’ vs ‘Been’
- Example Mistakes
‘Gone’, as the past participle of ‘to go’, represents when a person of thing has moved to another place, such as in the examples above. Here are some more examples: The emphasis in these examples is that the subject of the sentence is no longer in the place where the statement is made, or where the subject began.
‘Been’, as the past participle of ‘to be’, is often used to speak about states, such as emotions and feelings, or to describe a passive action (where ‘to be’ is used as an auxiliary). However, ‘been’ is also used to speak about movement. In this case, the person or thing moved to another place, but has since returned to the original place. Here are...
There is, therefore, a fundamental difference between using ‘gone’ and ‘been’ to talk about movement. Note the contrast in these examples: In the second example above, it would also be acceptable to say ‘Where did you go?’, particularly in the United States. In British English, the present perfect tense with ‘been’ (as in the example above) would b...
These are examples of typical mistakes when using ‘gone’ and ‘been’: Generally speaking, it is much more common to make a mistake by using ‘gone’ instead of ‘been’ than vice versa.
Usually, ‘ been ’ is used in conjunction with all perfect tenses to indicate that the speaker (you yourself or another person) has been somewhere and is back now or that the person is no longer there (absent). Examples: “Sam has been to Madrid over ten times. He knows the city very well.”.
If the visit is not complete, we use gone. Compare. Joan’s just gone to the shop. She’ll be back in about ten minutes. Joan has not yet returned from the shop. Joan’s just been to the shop. She bought some cakes.
What’s the difference? We use been when someone has returned from somewhere and they are talking about their experience. We use gone when someone is away and they are not here now. Exercise 1. I have ____ to Italy, and I really enjoyed it. been. gone. Exercise 2. You decide to go shopping and you leave a message for your partner. You write:
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What tenses do you use 'been' and 'gone'?
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Is gone a perfect tense?
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What is the past participle of the verb 'been'?
How do you use the word 'been' in a sentence?
“ Been ” is the past participle of the verb “ be ” and is used in the Perfect (completed) and Perfect Continuous (completed ongoing) tenses. It indicates an action that was completed by a certain point in the past or had been ongoing until that point. It often implies that someone has already returned from the place being mentioned.
