Tense
Verb Tense Tutorial
Verb tenses are tools that English speakers use to express time in their language. You may find that many English tenses do not have direct translations in your language. That is not a problem. By studying this verb tense tutorial, you will learn to think like a native English speaker. If you prefer to use the verb tense pages as a reference only and do not want to complete the tutorial, Click Here.
The tutorial should be completed as follows:
2. Prepare for the exercises by reading: Types of Verbs, Active vs. Passive, and the verb tense descriptions that you want to practice.
3. Complete the exercises below. After each exercise, we have listed the tenses covered. Just click on the name of a tense to learn more about its use.
Verb Tense Overview with Examples
| Simple Present | Simple Past | Simple Future |
| I study English every day. | Two years ago, I studied English in England. | If you are having problems, I will help you study English. I am going to study English next year. |
| Present Continuous | Past Continuous | Future Continuous |
| I am studying English now. | I was studying English when you called yesterday. | I will be studying English when you arrive tonight. I am going to be studying English when you arrive tonight. |
| Present Perfect | Past Perfect | Future Perfect |
| I have studied English in several different countries. | I had studied a little English before I moved to the U.S. | I will have studied every tense by the time I finish this course. I am going to have studied every tense by the time I finish this course. |
| Present Perfect Continuous | Past Perfect Continuous | Future Perfect Continuous |
| I have been studying English for five years. | I had been studying English for five years before I moved to the U.S. | I will have been studying English for over two hours by the time you arrive. I am going to have been studying English for over two hours by the time you arrive. |
Tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place. Some typical tenses are present, past, and future.
Tense can make finer distinctions than simple past-present-future; past tenses for example can cover general past, immediate past, or distant past, with the only difference between them being the distance on the timeline between the temporal reference points. Such distinctions are not precise: an event may be described in the remote past because it feels remote to the speaker, not because a set number of days have passed since it happened; it may also be remote because it is being contrasted with another, more recent, past event. This is similar to other forms of deixis such as this and that.
In absolute tense, as in English, tense indicates when the time of assertion, time of completion, or time of evaluation occurs relative to the utterance itself (time of utterance). In relative tense, on the other hand, tense is relative to some given event.
The number of tenses in a language may be disputed, because the term tense is often used to represent any combination of tense proper, aspect, and mood. In many texts the term "tense" may erroneously indicate qualities of uncertainty, frequency, completion, duration, possibility, or whether information derives from experience or hearsay (evidentiality). Tense differs from aspect, which encodes how a situation or action occurs in time rather than when. In many languages, there are grammatical forms which express several of these meanings (see tense–aspect–mood).
In languages which have tenses, they are normally usually indicated by a verb or modal verb. Some languages only have grammatical expression of time through aspect; others have neither tense nor aspect. Some East Asian isolating languages such as Chinese express time with temporal adverbs, but these are not required, and the verbs are not inflected for tense. In Slavic languages such as Russian a verb may be inflected for both tense and aspect together.
The Tenses
Overview | Simple Present | Simple Future | Simple Past Present Continuous | Future Continuous | Past Continuous Present Perfect Simple | Present Perfect Future | Present Perfect Continuous
Past Perfect Simple | Past Perfect Continuous The Future
Past Perfect Simple | Past Perfect Continuous The Future
Things can happen now, in the future or in the past. The tenses show the time of an action or state of being as shown by a verb. The verb ending is changed (conjugated) to show what time it is referring to.
Time can be split into three periods The Present (what you are doing), The Past (what you did) and The Future (what you are going to do, or hope / plan to do ).
The tenses we use to show what time we are talking about are split into the Simple, Continuous and Perfect tenses.
In English we use two tenses to talk about the present and six tenses to talk about the past. There are several ways to talk about the future some of which use the present tenses, these are:
Simple Tenses
The simple tenses are used to show permanent characteristics of people and events or what happens regularly, habitually or in a single completed action.
Continuous Tenses
The continuous tenses are used when talking about a particular point in time.
Perfect Tenses
Sometimes you need to give just a little bit more information about an action or state...and that is where the perfect tenses come in.
The perfect tenses are used when an action or situation in the present is linked to a moment in the past. It is often used to show things that have happened up to now but aren't finished yet or to emphasize that something happened but is not true anymore. When they end determines which of them you use.
Perfect tenses are never used when we say when something happened i.e. yesterday, last year etc. but can be used when discussing the duration of something i.e. often, for, always, since etc..
The Future Tenses
Discussing the future in English can seem complicated.The present simple, present continuous, present perfect simple and the present perfect continuous can all be used and often it is possible to use more than one structure, but have the same meaning.
Table of English Tenses
| tense | Affirmative/Negative/Question | Use | Signal Words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple Present | A: He speaks. N: He does not speak. Q: Does he speak? |
| always, every …, never, normally, often, seldom, sometimes, usually if sentences type I (If I talk, …) |
| Present Progressive | A: He is speaking. N: He is not speaking. Q: Is he speaking? |
| at the moment, just, just now, Listen!, Look!, now, right now |
| Simple Past | A: He spoke. N: He did not speak. Q: Did he speak? |
| yesterday, 2 minutes ago, in 1990, the other day, last Friday if sentence type II (If I talked, …) |
| Past Progressive | A: He was speaking. N: He was not speaking. Q: Was he speaking? |
| when, while, as long as |
| Present Perfect Simple | A: He has spoken. N: He has not spoken. Q: Has he spoken? |
| already, ever, just, never, not yet, so far, till now, up to now |
| Present Perfect Progressive | A: He has been speaking. N: He has not been speaking. Q: Has he been speaking? |
| all day, for 4 years, since 1993, how long?, the whole week |
| Past Perfect Simple | A: He had spoken. N: He had not spoken. Q: Had he spoken? |
| already, just, never, not yet, once, until that day if sentence type III (If I had talked, …) |
| Past Perfect Progressive | A: He had been speaking. N: He had not been speaking. Q: Had he been speaking? |
| for, since, the whole day, all day |
| Future I Simple | A: He will speak. N: He will not speak. Q: Will he speak? |
| in a year, next …, tomorrow If-Satz Typ I (If you ask her, she will help you.) assumption: I think, probably, perhaps |
| Future I Simple (going to) | A: He is going to speak. N: He is not going to speak. Q: Is he going to speak? |
| in one year, next week, tomorrow |
| Future I Progressive | A: He will be speaking. N: He will not be speaking. Q: Will he be speaking? |
| in one year, next week, tomorrow |
| Future II Simple | A: He will have spoken. N: He will not have spoken. Q: Will he have spoken? |
| by Monday, in a week |
| Future II Progressive | A: He will have been speaking. N: He will not have been speaking. Q: Will he have been speaking? |
| for …, the last couple of hours, all day long |
| Conditional I Simple | A: He would speak. N: He would not speak. Q: Would he speak? |
| if sentences type II (If I were you, I would go home.) |
| Conditional I Progressive | A: He would be speaking. N: He would not be speaking. Q: Would he be speaking? |
| |
| Conditional II Simple | A: He would have spoken. N: He would not have spoken. Q: Would he have spoken? |
| if sentences type III (If I had seen that, I would have helped.) |
| Conditional II Progressive | A: He would have been speaking. N: He would not have been speaking. Q: Would he have been speaking? |
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