My English grammar book (English Grammar, David Daniels & Barbara Daniels) describes the perfect tenses as follows:
The perfect tenses are used to describe how an event in the present, past or future continues to be relevant at a later time.
When I say when I was born, in English I use the past tense, as I have done in this sentence too. I don't use a perfect tense. In Italian I would use the passato prossimo, which this section of the Italian Wikipedia article about passato prossimo considers equivalent to the present perfect.
Which tense should I use for a past event that it is still relevant at the present time?
Best Answer
This is a bit clearer if rather than "still relevant" you think of the perfect tenses as expressing a current (with respect to Reference time) state, not an event.
The English phrasal verb be born, however, designates an event: birth, which is the punctiliar fact of entry into a state of extra-maternal existence (I am being as pompous and mealy-mouthed as possible to avoid politico-theological controversy). An event is expressed using a simple form, not a perfect form.
There are circumstances in which a perfect construction with born is proper; for instance:
Here a current state is spoken of: the existence of an heir presumptive. But if you want to locate the birth in time you are speaking of the event, not the consequent state, and you must employ the simple tense: