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Consider these sentences:

1) You have interested in reading

2) You are interested in reading.

In the above sentences, is there any difference between using perfect tense(have+past participle) and passive voice('be'verb+past participle).

Do these sentences have same meaning?

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    The difference is the first example isn't a valid English sentence (in any context, although it could feasibly occur as a clause in, say, I am one of the students you have interested in reading). Commented Sep 17, 2016 at 15:29

3 Answers 3

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The voice (active or passive) and the tense (present, perfect etc) are things that you can choose independently. You don't have to choose either passive or perfect: you can have active present, passive present, active perfect and passive perfect.

First, let's look at the present. When used in active voice, the verb interest requires an object:

you interest me.

We can also use it in passive voice. First of all, the object of the active voice sentence becomes the subject of the passive voice sentence, me -> I.

For most verbs, we can specify the agent (the subject of an active voice sentence) using the preposition by, but for interested we use the preposition in.

I am interested in you.

We can put both the active and the passive voice versions into the past, like this:

you interest me -> you have interested me. - active voice.
I am interested in reading -> I have been interested in you... passive voice.

Note that, in the passive voice version, we put the am into past, have been. Note also that these sentences would feel better with a time clause like since... or for a long time.

Comparing these with your first sentence, it is easy to see that your first sentence lacks an object me:

You have interested me in reading

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  • I found in dictionary "interested" as an adjective . It wasn't the case for many past particle of other verbs. In my example one can say "I am very interested in you". Can we use very in all passive voices?
    – Ahmad
    Commented Sep 17, 2016 at 19:43
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    @Ahmad, a past participle is a kind of adjective. Some adjectives are gradable- something can have that quality in varying degrees. Some participles are gradable.Broken is both a participle and and an adjective: it is not gradable, so you cannot say very broken.
    – JavaLatte
    Commented Sep 18, 2016 at 9:05
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    Note that in informal speech, we do treat broken as gradable sometimes. See the song 'so broken' by Björk. Also in software development, a certain product may be referred to as very broken, extremely broken, etc.
    – tjp
    Commented Mar 27, 2018 at 12:57
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The verb interest means:

to make someone want to pay attention to something and find out more about it:

Here's an article which might interest you.

or

to try to persuade someone to buy, do, or eat something

interest somebody in something

The salesman tried to interest me in the higher-priced model.

Then, your first usage of the verb interest has no meaning, unless as a clause like:

I am one of the students you have interested in reading.

It means You have interested me in reading.


But the second interested which is very common and comes with "in" preposition is an adjective (past participle).

You have always been interested in reading.

You are very interested in reading.

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To talk about a wish to do something,we use "interested" with an _ing form. I am interested in working in India.

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