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Background story: My friend likes to boast about his work achievements a lot.

I want to complain about it to others. Which one below is grammatically correct?

The hard concept for me: I don't know if I should use past tense in this case. Since it is about his regular boasting behavior, it seems correct to use present or present perfect. However, I think past tense can work here too...

01 My friend always boasts about what he achieves at work.

02 My friend always boasts about what he achieved at work.

03 My friend always boasts about what he has achieved at work.

04 My friend always likes to boast about the achievements that he accomplishes at work.

05 My friend always likes to boast about the achievements that he accomplished at work.

06 My friend always likes to boast about the achievements that he has accomplished at work.

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"Achieved" and "accomplished" are both past tense. If you use these words, it sounds like your friend is boasting only about something that happened in the past. Even though you say "always boasts" to indicate that he continues to do this, he could still be talking about something that happened in the past.

If you mean to say that he boasts about achievements on an ongoing basis, then you need to use the present tense (he achieves / he accomplishes):

My friend always boasts about what he achieves/accomplishes at work.

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  • The present continuous tense should look like this: to be [am, is, are] + verb [present participle], no?
    – AIQ
    Commented Oct 12, 2019 at 19:20

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