When to use Past and when Present Perfect

[Iouri]

I read in my lessons that:
Another important thing to remember is that the Present perfect tense in Dutch is used when speaking of events which happend in the past. It is the most frequently used Past tense in Dutch

Is there a rule, when to use Past and when to use Present Perfect. It looks like it is not the same as in English.

Thank you

[Joke]

You're right, it's defenitely not the same as in English. I still make mistakes in English for exactly that reason...

It's not easy to give clear rules, but here are some guidelines:
http://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=Verbs.Re11
http://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=Verbs.Re14
Apart from this, I'm afraid it's a matter of learning by trial and error and paying attention to what Dutch people do when you read or hear Dutch.

Joke

[Iouri]

Everything is very vague. Anyway, is it a big mistake if someone used simple past instead of present perfect?

Thanks a lot

[Bert]

Everything is very vague. Anyway, is it a big mistake if someone used simple past instead of present perfect?

Thanks a lot

Well, that would be a tremendous mistake... No, just kidding.
You can find here some very useful example sentences:
http://educatie-en-school.infonu.nl/bui ... ngels.html

[Iouri]

Thank you Bert.

This example screwed my brains even more,

That is an excerpt from the link you gave me

Simple Past Tense

Voorbeeld:
Gisteren ben ik van mijn fiets gevallen. – I fell from my bike yesterday.
Hij heeft vorige week de premier gezien. – He saw the Prime Minister last week.

I would say that this is Present perfect
-----------------------------------------------

Present Perfect

Voorbeeld:
Lisa is al vijf jaar mijn vriendin. – Lisa has been my girlfriend for five years now.

I would say that this is simple present

[Bert]

Voorbeeld:
Gisteren ben ik van mijn fiets gevallen. – I fell from my bike yesterday.

It's not that difficult. You can see from the example above that the Dutch usually use present perfect where you would use simple past. There are other rules as well but this is the most important in my opinion.

[Iouri]

So, if I want to say something in the past I ALWAYS can use Present Perfect?

[Joke]

Thank you Bert.

This example screwed my brains even more,

That is an excerpt from the link you gave me

Simple Past Tense

Voorbeeld:
Gisteren ben ik van mijn fiets gevallen. – I fell from my bike yesterday.
Hij heeft vorige week de premier gezien. – He saw the Prime Minister last week.

I would say that this is Present perfect
-----------------------------------------------

Present Perfect

Voorbeeld:
Lisa is al vijf jaar mijn vriendin. – Lisa has been my girlfriend for five years now.

I would say that this is simple present

You are right. The site Bert linked to is meant for teaching Dutch people how to use the tenses in English. The tenses mentioned are correct for the English sentences, but not for the Dutch translations. I think the most important lesson you can learn here is that English and Dutch indeed do use different tenses to say the same thing, but it's probably not the most useful site to learn about Dutch.

[Iouri]

Thank you Joke.

Please confirm that I understand it correctly.
I can use either simple past or present perfect tense for the past events

[Joke]

In principle, you can, but in reality, usually one sounds much better than the other.
We often use the simple past to describe situations in the past and the past perfect to describe events.

Wat is er gebeurd? (Asking for events, present perfect.)
Terwijl ik lag te slapen (situation, simple past), is er bij me ingebroken (event, present perfect).
Vroeger luisterde ik altijd naar popmuziek. (situation in the past, simple past)
Ik heb gisteren een nieuw boek gekocht (event, present perfect).