You use present perfect to describe the present (ie. using a past event). You use past simple to describe the past. If you're wondering, the past simple doesn't "logically follow" on to the present. English doesn't work that way. Past stays in the past. Only present perfect can connect the past to the present.

Now I understand some of the confusion. (present). I wrote about future perfect. (simple past). I have addressed this tense in the past. (past) I had addressed it correctly, but I wrote about the future perfect. (past perfect and simple past) See how the past perfect is written relative to another event. My example about the future perfect is also correct (though not the question I think you asked).

Present perfect is for an action started in the past but still continuing up to now. Simple past action is over. Present perfect example: I have been studying English for 5 years. Meaning, 5 years ago you started to learn English and you still are learning it. Simple past: I learned English 5 years ago....meaning you no longer are learning English.

English is my first language and I use the simple past all the time. I got up in the morning and I brushed my teeth. I ate breakfast. Present perfect is used when a clause in the future is described relative to another. By nine this evening, I will have completed five new lessons. The "will have" with the past participle describes a future event relative to something else. When the signal finally turns green, I will have waited ten minutes.

You don't need to get too bogged down in difficult aspects of grammar when you are starting out learning a language. If you don't always understand the grammar, do you understand the sense or meaning of a sentence? Keep working with simple sentences and constructions that have simple, accurate translations into your native tongue and work up from there. You may not always know how to explain the grammar but you will recognise when a sentence is right or wrong. Very few native speakers of English can tell you what the present perfect or the present perfect continuous is, but they still speak grammatically correct English.