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'Yet' (negative/question) and 'already' (affirmative) express whether something has happened; 'still' expresses continuation.
Side-by-side comparison
"Yet" is used in questions and negations to talk about something expected to happen: "Has she arrived yet?" or "She hasn't arrived yet".
Have you finished your homework yet? Dinner is almost ready and getting cold.
I have not seen that film yet, everyone keeps recommending it though.
She has already passed her driving test, she only started lessons two months ago.
I have not finished the report yet.
Has she arrived yet?
"Already" is used in affirmatives (and sometimes surprised questions) for something that happened sooner than expected. "Still" describes something that continues unchanged.
He is still at the office, he said he would be home by seven but it is nearly nine.
We have been waiting over an hour and the food still has not arrived, this is ridiculous.
She still does not know how to cook rice properly, even after watching the tutorial three times.
She is still studying. She started three hours ago.
I still do not understand the problem.
Common mistake
Classic errors:
- 1."Did you finish yet?" = wrong: "yet" goes with present perfect: "Have you finished yet?"
- 2."I still not have replied" = wrong, the order with negative "still" is subject + still + auxiliary + not: "I still haven't replied."
Trick to remember it
Three contexts:
- 1."already" (affirmative) = it has happened, sometimes sooner than expected, position: before past participle.
- 2."Yet" (negative/question) = it has not happened, or has it?, position: end of sentence.
- 3."Still" (affirmative/negative) = the situation continues unchanged, position: before main verb, after auxiliary.
Quick rule
- •Already = already (affirmative, present perfect, before past participle).
- •Yet = not yet / yet? (negative/question, present perfect, at end).
- •Still = still/yet (continuation, before main verb).
Did you know?
YET has two completely distinct grammatical lives that confuse learners and many native speakers. The first is YET as a temporal adverb (present perfect: "have you finished yet?"). The second is YET as a formal adversative conjunction, equivalent to "but" or "however": "It was a difficult project, yet the team delivered on time." This conjunctive YET is frequent in literary and formal English and appears often in Shakespeare and 19th-century texts: "He was poor, yet he was honest." Today, the adversative YET remains an elegant stylistic option in formal written English, an unmistakable sign of advanced language mastery when used correctly.
Practise what you learned
Exercise 1 · Pick the right one
I've _____ seen that film. I saw it last week with my sister.
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
She hasn't heard the news _____. She's going to be shocked.
Exercise 3 · Form the word
Exercise 4 · Pick the right one
He hasn't finished the report _____ . He needs another hour.
Exercise 5 · Pick the right one
She is _____ waiting for her results. It's been two weeks.
Exercise 6 · Form the word
Related word pairs
Simple past indicates a completed action at a specific past moment; present perfect connects the past to the present.
'Since' marks the starting point of something active until the present; 'ago' indicates distance into the past from now.
'A' is used before consonant sounds; 'an' is used before vowel sounds.
'A lot of' works for countable and uncountable; 'many' only for countable; 'much' only for uncountable.
Bryan López
Founder of SpeakUP Academy