I'm an American and my daughter is learning British English in school, so when I help her with her homework, I have to know the British rules.
She writes:
I have got a horse poster.
I understand that that is correct expression of the present tense in British English (even though I would write "I have a horse poster"). But now she wants to write in the past tense, so she writes:
For my birthday, I have got a horse poster.
I think this is incorrect even in British. I think she should write:
For my birthday, I got a horse poster.
But that sounds too American to me.
Which is the correct version?
Best Answer
The past tense locates a past event at a specific point in time. In your example, my birthday is clearly a past event at a specific point in time, and it’s that that makes the past tense, got, appropriate. I got a horse poster answers the question What did you get for your birthday?
If your daughter had been speaking on her actual birthday, she might have been asked What have you got for your birthday? and she might then have replied I have got a horse poster. Those two sentences use the perfect construction, used to refer to an event in the past (in this case in the very recent past) that has relevance at the time of speaking.