English Verb Tenses

Verb Tense

• The English language has 12 different tenses to express time and events in writing.
• The four principal parts of the verb are: Present, Present Participle, Past, and Past Participle.

Principal Parts of the Verb

• The Present form is the basic form of the present and future tense.
• The Present Participle is used with various helping verbs to produce the 6 progressive tenses.
• The Past form is the basic form of the past tense.
• The Past Participle is used with various helping verbs to produce the 3 perfect tenses and is used with be verbs to form verbs in the passive voice.

Types of Verbs

• Regular verbs are verbs whose past and past participle are formed by adding –ed and -d to the present form.
• Irregular verbs are verbs whose past and past participle are not formed by adding –ed and -d to the present form.

Simple Present Tense

• Expresses general truths or facts that are timeless.
• Expresses a habit or often repeated action.
• Adverbs of frequency such as often, seldom, sometimes, never, etc. are used with this tense.

Simple Present Tense vs. Present Progressive

• The present progressive is used to describe an action that is occurring right now.
• The present progressive can also be used to describe an action that is occurring in the present but is temporary.

Simple Past Tense

• Used to indicate exactly when an action or event took place in the past.
• Used to describe actions and/or events that are now completed and no longer true in the present.

Past Progressive Tense

• Used to talk about an activity that was in progress at a specific point of time in the past.
• Emphasizes the duration of the activity in the past.

Present Perfect Tense

• Used to talk about an event that began in the past and continues up to the present.
• Used to talk about an event that was completed in the past, but the specific time of the event is not important.

Present Perfect Progressive Tense

• Used to describe the duration of an action that began in the past and continues into the present.
• Used to describe events that have been in progress recently and are rather temporary.

Past Perfect Tense

• Describes completed events that took place in the past before another past event.

Past Perfect Progressive Tense

• Used to emphasize the duration of an action that was completed before another action or event in the past.

Future Tense

• Will and be + going + to are often used to describe future actions.
• Used to describe an event or action that will occur over a period of time at a specific point in the future.

Future Progressive Tense

• Used to describe an event or action that will be completed before another event or time in the future.