Have been /has been & Were/was.

For example:

It has been announced that ...
It was announced that ...

These rooms have been assigned to us.
These rooms were assigned to us.


What is the difference :?: I discern none. :?

It has been announced that...
Объявили что... объявили - что сделали? - совершенная форма глагола - переводится на английский in Perfect Tense
It was announced that ...
Объявляли что... имеется ввиду что когда-то один раз или несколько раз объявляли - что делали? - переводится на английский в Simple Tense.
Так же и с комнатами, только там страдательный залог - passive voice. На английски язык русские глаголы совершeнной формы переводятся во времена группы Perfect, несовершенной - Simple. Вот и вся разница. Надеюсь понятно? :D
to all: I said that russian perfect verbs translate into english in Perfect Tenses and russian imperfect verbs translate into english in Simple(Indefinite) Tenses. We see no diffrence between, for example, Present Simple and Present Perfect 'couse there is only one Present Tense in Russian. But we got two verb forms.

Was and were tend to allude to a specific time or action.

Today it was announced.....
Yesterday these rooms were.....

While, has been and have been are more vague as to when the action actually occured.

JB, u say absolutely like in English textbooks, but this is absolutely impossible to understand for russians. I got it only I had graduated a college.

Спасибо! Понятно :) Надо мне грамматику учить :)

Я когда читаю всякие eng. texts, то оба варианта обычно представляю просто как совершенные действия в прошедшем времени, но всегда было смутное ощущение, что разница есть. Забыл, что существуют и несовершенные формы глагола.

I was
you were
we were
they were
she was
he was
we all were.

although you can say instead of "you were?" and can say "were you?" hhhhheeeeeeeeheeeeeeee. i love when i find ways to relate my native langauge to that of my favorite language.

Just remember this:

Present tense- describes what happens regularly, what takes place in the present, and what is consistently or generally true.
(EX: I talk, I eat, I am talking, I have talked, I have eaten, I have been talking)
Past tense- tells of an action completed or a condition ended.
(EX: I talked, I ate, I was talking, I had talked, I had eaten, I had been talking)
future tense- indicates action yet to be taken or a condition not yet experienced.
(EX: I will talk, I will eat, I will be talking, I will have talked, I will have eaten, I will have been talking)

What is the difference between:

Have you noticed?

and

Did you notice?

Have you noticed = have you ever noticed, up until now
Did you notice = did you notice at a certain point (note: sometimes this may be left out)

Have you noticed that I'm tired?
Did you notice in the afternoon that I am/was tired?

Sort of like that. Although, in my opinion, English has an overusage of the "did" way to form a sentence.

yea, thats right v.

have you noticed how it rains all the time?
did you notice it rained yesterday?

have you noticed all of you movies are boring?
did you notice that i told you your movies are boring?

Quote:

---

What is the difference between:

Have you noticed?

and

Did you notice?

---

It depends on what you are trying to ask in the sentence.
If you were to make these into more specific sentences for example:
Have you noticed my new jeans?
Did you notice my new jeans?
You are asking the same question if you are referring to the same time period in each. In this case they would be the same.