I am curious whether it's just my brain that doesn't work right

[dr4b]

You're describing your travel experience to someone... which of these sentences would you SAY? As in, speaking, not as in writing an email/etc -- you're at the office or somewhere talking to somebody. Assume that you actually have the experience of travelling to France and Spain at some point in your life, and someone's asking you about what countries you have the experience of travelling to or plan to travel to.

(oh, and assume appropriate abbreviation, ie, "I've" instead of "I have", if that helps.)

[Poll #1413618]

And a better question: does it change if you are writing a report or article rather than just speaking?

Comments

[katybeth]

In spoken English, I would nearly always use "I've" in these sentences for "I have."

The first two assert that yes, there exists a time when I went to France, but I would not use them for talking about a specific trip.

The future ones are not quite proper, I think. Proper future tense would be "I will be going to/visiting..." or "I am going to go to/visit..." But what you wrote is very common and accepted phrasing.