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I want to refer to some state after somehting action has completed. For instance,

I will be at home after I've completed all of my work.

Is the present perfect common in the case?

Dmitrii Bundin
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    I'll be home once I'm done with (all of) my work. Somehow, after with present perfect does not sound correct to my ears. Instead, I'll be home after I complete my work. sounds okay – Maulik V Aug 19 '14 at 09:56

1 Answers1

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Your understanding is correct. I will just quote Practical English Usage by Michael Swan:

30 after: conjunction
3 perfect tenses
In clauses with after, we often use present and past perfect tenses to show that one thing is completed before another starts.
​　　　I'll telephone you after I've seen Jake.
​　　　After I had finished school, I went to America.

Note how similar your example and the first example from the book are. Also, be careful with the tense. The second example uses the past perfect because the main clause is in the past.

Damkerng T.
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  • Thank you. But there are two different tenses in two examples that you cited. I mean I went and I'll telephone. Both present and future tenses are talked about a future in the case. What exact difference between them? – Dmitrii Bundin Aug 22 '14 at 03:19
  • "Both present and future tenses are talked about a future in the case." -- No. I read this "I went to America" plainly as a past event, and thus you can use either the simple or the perfect aspect. This is also applied to the first example (after I've seen Jake) which is used as a condition for (I'll telephone you). Also note that the point of 30.3 is not about it has to the the perfect tenses, it's just that "we often use" them. This is because one strong sense of the perfect tenses is about completion or achievement. See also: http://ell.stackexchange.com/q/13255/3281. – Damkerng T. Aug 22 '14 at 05:12