Tenses

English grammar tenses

Tense is a grammatical term used to describe time; that is, whether an action or state happened in the past, is happening in the present, or will happen in the future. Tense is not limited to this, but these are its basic uses.

We can show different tenses with the use of inflections and auxiliary verbs. We will cover these in detail throughout this article, but let's take a look at some quick definitions of these terms now.

Types of tenses

In English grammar there are three main tenses: the past tense, the present tense, and the future tense.

When we combine the three main tenses with aspects we are left with twelve different tenses. Before we list these twelve tenses, let's take a quick look at aspects.

The twelve tenses are:

• The present simple, present continuous, present perfect, and present perfect continuous.

• The past simple, past continuous, past perfect, and past perfect continuous.

• The future simple, future continuous, future perfect, and future perfect continuous.

Let's now look at the three main tenses in detail before moving on to tenses and aspects.

The past tense

The past tense shows that an action (or state of being) happened (or existed) in the past.

The past tense may also be used to refer to the present tense ('I wish I had a cat' ) or the future tense ('Imagine if we moved to Spain' ).

We can also use the past tense to talk about habitual actions or events in the past that were repeated or occurred regularly.

Fig 1. We used to go to Scotland

Examples of the past tense

Let's look at some examples of different variations of the past tense.

How is the past tense formed?

For regular verbs, we form the past tense by adding the inflection -d or -ed to the base form of the verb. Here's an example:

Things are a bit more tricky with irregular verbs, such as 'run → ran' and 'be → was/were/been' which don't follow the same inflectional rule. We just have to memorise the spellings for these irregular verbs.

We will cover irregular verbs in more detail later on!

Present tense

The present tense shows that an action (or state of being) is happening (or exists) in the present (e.g. 'I'm going to the shops' or 'I live in Liverpool').

It can also be used to talk about the future (e.g.' The train leaves at 10 pm tonight' ) or about the past (e.g. 'So, the other day I'm walking down the road when I see this dog running towards me' ). We can also refer to a habitual action or event using the present tense. This is something that is repeated or happens regularly. For example, 'I normally go to the library on a Wednesday'.

In literature, the present tense can be used to make the reader feel more connected to the story. Take this sentence for example: 'Joe feels a sense of dread as he walks slowly over to the shadow lurking in the distance'. As the story is happening in the present, you feel the suspense and the unfolding plot in 'real-time'.

Examples of the present tense

Let's look at some examples of some variations of the present tense.

How do we form the present tense?

The simple present tense is formed using the base of a verb e.g. 'play'.

We must add the inflection -s when using the third person singular (he/she/it).

We can also add the infection -ing to base verbs to form the present continuous tense (sometimes called the progressive tense). We use this verb pattern to talk about an ongoing action in the present or to discuss future plans.

Future tense

The future tense is used to express an action (or state of being) that has not yet happened but is expected to happen in the future.

Examples of the future tense

Let's look at some examples of different variations of the future tense.

How do we form the future tense?

As we previously mentioned, some grammarians argue that there is no future tense, just ways of expressing the future using combinations of other tenses and aspects. This is because inflections aren't added to the base verb to form something called the 'future tense', as they are for the present and past tenses. Instead, we use modal auxiliary verbs, such as 'will', 'shall' and 'going to', to describe future events, actions, and states.

Fig 2. I shall play chess soon!

Irregular verbs

Irregular verbs are verbs that don't follow the rule of adding the inflection -ed/d to form the simple past or past forms.

There are quite a few irregular verbs in English; let's look at some examples.

Examples of irregular verbs

These examples show how varied irregular verbs can be. For regular verbs, we can simply add -ed/-d for to the base form of a verb (Verb 1) for both the past simple tense (verb 2) and past participle (verb 3). For example, I dance (present tense/base form) → I danced (past tense) → I have danced (past participle).

However, things aren't as simple in the case of irregular verbs which often differ in spelling between the present, past, and past participle. Unfortunately, there is no rule for irregular verbs, you simply have to remember them!

Aspect

Each of the three main tenses (past, present, and future) is divided into four aspects. Aspect shows the time-related characteristics of a sentence such as whether a verb is ongoing, repeated, or completed.

We can classify tenses into four different types: simple, continuous (progressive), perfect, and perfect progressive (continuous).

Let's take a look at the functions and some examples of these aspects in more detail.

Simple

The simple tense simply expresses that an action has taken place in the past/present/future. In other words, it states a fact. There are no aspects so we are not given information about 'how' the verb is done.

Perfect (or 'perfective')

The perfect aspect expresses a completed action, one that occurred prior to a specific point in time . We can form the perfect aspect using the auxiliary verbs 'had', 'has', or 'will have' + the past participle of the verb.

• The past perfect looks back from a point of time in the past, e.g. 'I had walked '.

• The present perfect looks back from the present time, e.g. 'I have walked'.

• The future perfect looks back from a time in the future, e.g. 'I will have walked'.

Progressive / continuous

The continuous aspect expresses an ongoing, uncompleted action. We form the progressive aspect using the correct form of the verb ' to be' (depending on the tense) and the inflection '-ing' added to the main verb.

Perfect continuous (or 'progressive')

The perfect continuous aspect expresses that an action started in the past is continuing into the present. A perfect continuous sentence is formed with the auxiliary have / has / had with the auxiliary verb been (past participle) together with the main verb e.g. 'walking' (with the -ing inflection).

Combining tense and aspect

These aspects and tenses combine to create the twelve verb tenses we use today:

Types of past tense

• Past (simple) tense- e.g. ' I worked yesterday'

• Past continuous (progressive) tense- e.g. 'I was working yesterday'

• Past perfect tense- e.g. 'I had worked yesterday'

• Past perfect continuous tense- e.g. 'I had been working yesterday'

Types of present tense

• Present (simple) tense- e.g. 'I work'

• Present continuous (progressive) tense- e.g. 'I am working'

• Present perfect tense- e.g. 'I have worked'

• Present perfect continuous tense- e.g. 'I have been working'

Types of future tense

• Future (simple) tense- e.g. 'I will work'

• Future continuous (progressive) tense- e.g. 'I will be working'

• Future perfect tense- e.g. 'I will have worked'

• Future perfect continuous tense- e.g. 'I will have been working'

Tenses Revision Sheet

Here is a revision sheet showing further examples of the 12 tenses in English. Study how the different tenses are formed using different verb inflections and sentence constructions:

Tenses in everyday conversation

Let's have a look at this conversation and see if we can identify different tenses by considering the use of verb inflections and the formation of the sentences.

Can you spot the different tenses? Below you can see where the different tenses are used.

How are tenses formed?

Tenses (past, present, and future) have developed over years and have formed into what we now know as the twelve English tenses. Not all languages have tenses - for example, Chinese has no verb conjugation or inflection - other languages use different numbers of tenses. Arabic and Japanese use two basic tenses rather than three and some languages even have more than three tenses.

Tense is normally shown through the use of a particular verb form. This is normally through either an inflected form of the main verb (where the verb is modified to express different categories like tense, aspect, etc.) or a multi-word construction (where separate words contain the meaning of prefixes, suffixes, or verbs). Some verb forms are made by combining inflected verbs and multi-word patterns.

Why is tense important?

Why is it so important to use tense accurately? Let's take a look at the following passage ...

What do you notice about this extract?

The tenses are all jumbled up! As you read it;'s obvious something isn't right. Here's a key of which tenses are being used in which sections of the extract.

Key: Past Tense = yellow, Present Tense = green, Future Tense = red

Hopefully, this short extract shows you how important the accurate use of tense is and how confusing it can be when tense is used inaccurately.