Upotreba present perfect na univerzitetskim studentskim dnevnicima

Abstract

English and Croatian differ on all linguistic levels, including the grammar system. Many structures existing in one language do not exist in the other and vice versa, occasionally resulting in inaccuracies in their use and confusion in translation. The pa­per presents the analysis conducted at the Faculty of Education, University of Osijek, on the journals written by Module C (En­glish language module) class-teacher students, enrolled in 2015, years of study 1–3. The main aim was to examine the students’ accurateness, and appropriateness of the use of Present Perfect since such a tense does not exist in Croatian and to attempt to find the reasons for such a situation. The instances of incorrect Present Perfect use from students’ journals were extracted, and in line with the primary aim, emphasis was put on what type of errors the students made. The sentences were also compared to their Croatian translations. The results illuminate the relations­hips between English and Croatian past and present time con­cepts, as well as the interference of Croatian and English past and present verb tenses for these groups of native Croatian lear­ners of English.