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Look at the situation:

A. Here's your award. Congratulations! B. Thank you so much! A. You deserved it.

Should it be "you've deserved it" here? To my mind, this is a classic case of Present Perfect, ie done in the past with the result in the present.

Could you explain, please?

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  • As soon as you receive it, you have received it or you received it. This is just like Spanish. Would there be any reason for saying: lo ha merecido over lo mereció? Or even: Lo merece? Think about that for just a minute...
    – Lambie
    Commented Jun 7 at 18:04
  • @Lambie I don't speak Spanish, so this won't help. Anyway thanks for the idea.
    – Pablo Descamisado
    Commented Jun 8 at 4:21
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    Ok, sorry. All three are correct. Although in a celebratory mood, the simple present is probably best.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jun 8 at 13:43

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Neither are correct: we would say "You deserve it." Being deserving of the award is a present state.

To move it into the tense in question, you could say, for example, "you've earned it" but not "you earned it".

EDIT: On further reflection, "you earned it" and "you've earned it" both work equally well, although as a native speaker I'd go for the second option (edit to clarify: I would go for the second option, "you've", if and only if I am presently granting the award; I would go with "you" if discussing an award that someone received in the past).

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    I think it would hardly ever be natural, because 'deserving something' isn't an action that someone did in the past and then finished.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jun 7 at 7:52
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    @PabloDescamisado I would say it would work only in the midst of an entire passage set in the present perfect. "Over the past 10 years you've been my faithful friend. You've earned my trust. I've expressed my gratitude more than once, but you've deserved even more than I've expressed."
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jun 7 at 13:54
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    Another example could be "You've deserved every award given to you so far", indicating that the state of being deserving has been going on for some time. This also implies that the deservedness is coming to an end, perhaps because the person in question is retiring. EDIT: that is, not that the deservedness is coming to an end (the person no longer deserves those awards), but "you've deserved" implies a certain finality or completion compared to "you deserve".
    – ohshitgorillas
    Commented Jun 7 at 16:41
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    Yet another example could be if someone has stopped being deserving of the award, as in "You've deserved it up until this point." but even then, "You deserved it up until this point" sounds more natural.
    – ohshitgorillas
    Commented Jun 7 at 16:47
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    @PabloDescamisado The missing key is: "earn" is an active verb while "deserve" is a passive one. You might be in a state of deserving because of something you did, but "earn" definitely talks about things you did, while "deserve" is just a state.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jun 7 at 17:00

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