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This is from a TV show.

P. J. is a teen. He's taken his newborn sister to the park. He leaves his sister alone in the stroller, while he is playing on a rocking bird for little kids.

Later, when he is finished, he comes back, gets down by the stroller, and asks his sister,

Hey there, Charlie, are we having fun yet?

Does he mean "are you having fun yet"?

Yet is used in present perfect, right? So, isn't it

"have we had fun yet "?

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2 Answers 2

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As posted in the comments, are we having fun yet is an idiom, however it doesn't sound that unusual.

  • "You" is sometimes replaced by "we", to sound patronizing, when an adult speaks to a small child or a pet, perhaps even in a funny voice. "Are we hungry?" "Are we ok?" "How are we doing?"

  • While "yet" might typically be used in the present perfect, the present tense isn't impossible. For example: "Are we there? Are we there yet?" In this case, it seems to indicate impatience, and the probable expectation of a negative answer.

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Cambridge lists one definition of "we" as "you":

used as the subject of a verb to mean "you", especially when talking to a child or someone who is ill:

  • We don't want to be late for school, do we?
  • "How are we this morning, Mrs Flanagan?" said the doctor.

To add to that definition, it is a way of generalising but without including yourself in the specific example. Using the first example above, "we don't want to be late" - in some contexts, that could include both yourself and the other person, if you were both due to be somewhere. When a parent says this to a child about school, the parent isn't themselves included (they are not personally due to be at school) but the parent is teaching the child a broader life lesson, that lateness is not good, and in that broader sense they are including themselves.

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