Lately I’ve heard so many people confuse “went” with “gone” that I decided it was worth a blog post on the topic. “Went” and “gone” are both variations of the verb “to go” but are used in different tenses. Here’s an explanation of the difference:
WENT is the simple past tense of TO GO:
GONE is used in the present perfect and past perfect tenses of TO GO:
Present perfect:
In the past month I have gone sailing twice
Past perfect (also known as pluperfect):
I hear the mistake most often when people say “have went” when they should say “have gone.” For example:
A clever trick for remembering the difference is to say the following out loud: “Correct answer, where have you gone?” Your ear probably knows that question is phrased correctly, so modeling it will tell you the answer.
-Maria
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