Learn All About Tenses

The most difficult challenge that English language learners will encounter is remembering the grammatical rules of all 16 verb tenses, which describe acts that have occurred in the past, are occurring now, and will occur in the future. Furthermore, they must be able to use them in the appropriate situation!

What exactly is Tense?

Tense (noun): a verb-based mechanism for indicating the time of an action or state, as well as the continuance or completion of an activity or state in respect to the time of speaking. 

ORIGIN Latin tempus, which means “time.”

In English, the concept of tense is a means of referring to the time that is divided into three categories: past, present, and future. Many languages employ the present tense to express the passage of time. Even though many languages have no concept of tense at all, they can nonetheless communicate about time, albeit in a slightly different way.

As a result, we use the present tense to communicate about time in English. However, and this is very important but:

We can also talk about time without referring to the present tense (for example, going to is a special construction to talk about the future, it is not a tense)

One tense does not always refer to a single instance of time (for example, we can use the present tense, or even the past tense, to talk about the future – see tense and time for more about this)

We can’t talk about tenses without mentioning two elements that are present in many English tenses: time and aspect. To put it another way…

The following is how time is expressed:

Past tense means “before now”

present – the present moment, or any time that encompasses the present moment

future tense means “after now”

An aspect can be any of the following:

progressive – action that has not been completed

perfective – an activity or state that has been accomplished

The most effective way to approach this seemingly hard undertaking is to first thoroughly master the most fundamental of English verb forms before attempting to comprehend the more complex ones. So, let’s have a look at the four fundamental tenses you should be familiar with:

Present Simple

These are universal truths (the earth revolves around the sun, my father has brown hair) or activities we perform regularly (every day, every week, every year, sometimes, seldom, or always). This verb tense is all about general facts (the earth revolves around the sun, my father has brown hair. Exercise three times a week, or your brother plays basketball for the school team.) These are examples of simple present tense that talk about everyday activities.

When the subject is I, you, we, or them, all you have to do is use the basic form of the verb (v1):

You always wake up late! 

If you’re referring to another person or thing (he, she, it), you’ll need to add a -s or -es to the end of the verb:

He always wakes up late! 

Present Continuous

When describing a continuous action, we use the -ing verb form of the verb. We employ the present continuous when an action is taking place right now or in the general present, and it has a foreseeable conclusion (which means it is not a recurring pattern). The To Be verb (am, is, or are) should be used in the following situations, followed by a -ing verb:

You are driving too fast!

Past Tense

It is important to remember that this tense is concerned with the past; especially, with accomplished activities in the past that are associated with a certain period. Past tense verbs (v2) are used in these sentences, and they are either regular (having an ending of the suffix d or -ed) or irregular (having an ending of the suffix d or -ed at the end).

You woke up late today!

Present Perfect

However, do not be fooled by its name; this tense has only a tenuous connection to the present. The present perfect is most often employed to describe past accomplishments, both large and little, without specifying when they occurred. This signifies that these statements do not include a reference to a previous time. But they can make a point of mentioning how many times you’ve done something.

If you want to speak about something you have done in the present perfect, we use, has/have with the past participle verb (v3) as follows:

Have you done your homework?

In some cases, this tense can be used to talk about acts that began in the past but continue to be true now. For example, In this situation, including the length of time that the action has been taking place:

She has studied English for five years. 

Conclusion

It is common practice in English grammar to use verbs in such a way that they express or denote when a particular event took place. Verbs that change their form to indicate the time of an action, event, or condition are referred to as finite verbs that indicate tenses. They change their form to express the time of an action, event, or condition.