Ate Vs. Eaten

[BoobyDazzler]

Ate Vs. Eaten. My son says “have you ate” and I’m forever correcting him and saying it’s “have you eaten?”. Today he’s replied that ‘ate’ is past tense, which is true, obviously. I said well yes, but it’s wrong and he asked why? I had to admit that I don’t know!

Have you ate sounds hideous to me, it can’t be correct. Please tell me why… or maybe I’m wrong 😑

You're not wrong.

Ate is the past simple, eaten is the past participle, used to form the present perfect with the addition of the auxiliary verb have.

I ate fish for dinner
I have eaten the fish

Both referring to past time, but past simple is usually for definite past time (I ate the fish yesterday etc) while present perfect is for indefinite past time. (I have eaten fish many times)

(Present perfect rules are more nuanced than that as there are three main uses, but that's the gist of it that your son should understand)

Infinitive: to eat
Gerund: eating
Past participle: eaten
Simple past: ate

Preterite - what you did
I ate
you ate
he/she/it ate
we ate
they ate
you ate

Present Perfect - what you did but continues to be true
I have eaten
you have eaten
he/she/it has eaten
we have eaten
they have eaten
you have eaten

If you want to know if your DS has eaten, it is 'Have you eaten?'

What they said
the question form of the preterite/simple past is
-did you eat?

notice this is slightly different to
-have you eaten?

-did you eat - referring to earlier in the evening
-have you eaten (yet) - referring to up until now