I would really appreciate it if you could help me with the following sentences:
- How many times have you gone to the gym this month?
- Have you ever gone to a game?
I have double checked the explanations available on the most reliable sites I know, but I fail to understand why these sentences read "gone" instead of "been".
go, went, gone
We say go to games in English, for attend a sports match and go to many other places.
I've gone to many basketball games in my life. But I didn't go to the one yesterday.
be, was, have been.
You can also say: to be at a game. It means: to be present at a game. I won't be at the baseball game today, but I've been to games in the past.
This is really six of one, half a dozen of the other. They both basically mean the same thing.
Go to is a normal, neutral phrase: it can be used in any tense, and in most tenses it does not imply that the person has or hasn't returned:
I am going to school.
She went to France
They may go to the cinema.
But in perfect constructions (in any tense), gone to usually implies that the person hasn't returned:
She's gone to school. (implies she is still there)
They had gone to France. (implies they had not, at that time, come back)
I may have gone to the cinema when you arrive. (implies I will still be there).
If you want the sense of "gone and come back" in a perfect construction, then you usually need to use the idiom have been.
She's been to school. (implies she has come back)
They've been to France. (implies they have come back)
I may have been to the cinema by the time you arrive. (implies that if I do I will return before you arrive).
You cannot use this idiom (*be to) in any non-perfect tense:
*I will be to France.
*She was to school.
*I may be to the cinema.
are all ungrammatical (marked by the *)
So in your examples, been would be possible, and to my ear more natural. Gone is possible, though, because they are not talking about specific occasions, but over a period of time, and whether or not you came back is not relevant.
