Pick the correct verb? "Residents (have been complaining/have complained) for years that tourists are ruining the coastline:
2 Answers
I would choose "have been complaining"
Explanation:
Since "have been complaining" is in the same tense (present tense) as the rest of the sentence, it is the correct answer. "Have complained" is past tense.
Hope that helped!
I vote for "have been complaining".
Explanation:
We have two choices:
-
Residents have been complaining for years that tourists are ruining the coastline.
-
Residents have complained for years that tourists are ruining the coastline.
...have been complaining... is in Present Perfect Continuous tense and is intended for measuring the time a subject has been performing an action from it's start up to the present. This interpretation of the sentence says that residents began complaining years ago and have been doing so up to and including today.
...have complained... is in Present Perfect tense and is intended to indicate that something happened in the past but that action is completed. This interpretation of the sentence says that residents complained. And then they complained. And then they complained. And so on. Each complaint being a solitary thing.
I think our first choice is the better choice since the rest of the sentence talks about how the residents have essentially been continuously complaining about the tourists and the tense matches that.
