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I would like to know whenever should we use

Having + past participle

Instead of

Verb + ing

Whereas its more common to use verb + ing instead of having + past participle. For example :

Having finished our work, we went home.

What's difference with following sentence:

After finishing our work, we went home.

Whether it is more formal or something else. Would you mind somebody explain this grammar?

Sasan
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    After we have finished our work, we went home. Is another possible variant. The way I see it they all mean the same thing! – SovereignSun Apr 11 '17 at 12:34
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    @SovereignSun I'm afraid not. After+non-past (the present perfect is a non-past tense) designates a future event, so this would be used properly with a future main clause: "After we have finished our work we will go home." – StoneyB on hiatus Apr 11 '17 at 13:08
  • @StoneyB Hmm... that's interesting. I should agree. How about: "After we finished work, we went home"? – SovereignSun Apr 11 '17 at 13:12
  • @SovereignSun That would be fine. – StoneyB on hiatus Apr 11 '17 at 13:16
  • @StoneyB +1. I'll leave the first comment for people to know that it's incorrect. – SovereignSun Apr 11 '17 at 13:17
  • @SovereignSun I think Having +pp is the formal saying and is more common in writing. – Sasan Apr 11 '17 at 13:21
  • "Having xxx, ..." implies a tighter timeline than "After xxx, ...". I think it's subtle, but to my brain, the former implies that the following mentioned activity occurred pretty much immediately after the xxx activity, whereas the latter, while not precluding this, allows for some intermission or other activity in between. (Canadian English) Is this a reasonable interpretation? – Jim MacKenzie Jun 20 '17 at 17:04

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In your example, one event is described immediately following another and you cannot see the difference. So both are correct. However, "after finishing" denotes a specific time, and "having finished" only tells you for sure that is was in the past.

Hopefully, you can see in this example that the uncertainty or certainty of when the original event took place means the whole sentence has to be restructured to make sense

Having seen the effects of similar plans, we rejected their proposal.

After seeing the effects of the current plan, we rejected similar proposals.

Zach Bolinger
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