Many English learners worry too much about tense. If you stopped 100 native English speakers in the street and asked them about tense, one of them might give you an intelligent answer—if you were lucky. The other 99 would know little about terms like "past perfect" or "present continuous". And they would know nothing about aspect, voice or mood. But they can all speak fluent English and communicate effectively. Of course, for ESL it helps to know about tenses, but don't become obsessed with them.

Be like those native speakers! Speak naturally! ...

The English Tense System

The links below are to lessons for each of the 12 basic tenses. In each lesson we look at two aspects of the tense:

• Structure: How do we make the tense?

• Use: When and why do we use the tense?

Some lessons look at additional aspects, and most of them finish with a quiz to check your understanding.

Present Tense
I do do, I do

Present Continuous Tense
I am doing, I am doing tomorrow

Present Perfect Tense
I have done

Present Perfect Continuous Tense

I have been doing

Past Tense

I did do, I did

Past Continuous Tense

I was doing

Past Perfect Tense

I had done

Past Perfect Continuous Tense

I had been doing

Future Tense

I will do

Future Continuous Tense

I will be doing

Future Perfect Tense

I will have done

Future Perfect Continuous Tense
I will have been doing

Simple Present Tense

I sing

How do we make the Simple Present Tense?

subject+auxiliary verb+main verb

do base

There are three important exceptions:

1. For positive sentences, we do not normally use the auxiliary.

2. For the 3rd person singular (he, she, it), we add s to the main verb or es to the auxiliary.

3. For the verb to be, we do not use an auxiliary, even for questions and negatives.

Look at these examples with the main verb like:

	subject	auxiliary verb		main verb
+	I, you, we, they			like	coffee.
+	He, she, it			likes	coffee.
-	I, you, we, they	do	not	like	coffee.
-	He, she, it	does	not	like	coffee.
?	Do	I, you, we, they		like	coffee?
?	Does	he, she, it		like	coffee?

Look at these examples with the main verb be. Notice that there is no auxiliary:

	subject	main verb
+	I	am		French.
	You, we, they	are		French.
	He, she, it	is		French.
-	I	am	not	old.
	You, we, they	are	not	old.
	He, she, it	is	not	old.
	Am	I		late?

	Are	you, we, they		late?
	Is	he, she, it		late?

How do we use the Simple Present Tense?

We use the simple present tense when:

• the action is general

• the action happens all the time, or habitually, in the past, present and future

• the action is not only happening now

• the statement is always true

John drives a taxi.
past	present	future
.
It is John's job to drive a taxi. He does it every day. Past, present and future.

Look at these examples:

• I live in New York.

• The Moon goes round the Earth.

• John drives a taxi.

• He does not drive a bus.

• We do not work at night.

. Do you play football?

Note that with the verb to be, we can also use the simple present tense for situations that are not general. We can use the simple present tense to talk about now. Look at these examples of the verb "to be" in the simple present tense—some of them are general, some of them are now:

Am I right? Tara is not at home. You are happy.
past	present	future
_
The situation is now.

The situation is now.

I am not fat. Why are you so beautiful? Ram is tall.
past	present	future

The situation is general. Past, present and future.

This page shows the use of the simple present tense to talk about general events. But note that there are some other uses for the simple present tense, for example in conditional or if sentences, or to talk about the future. You will learn about those later.

NB: To continue with this lesson, please download a full topic on pdf file below.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT TENSES

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