Verb Tenses Explained

Each of the past, present, and future tenses presents unique aspects that enrich the language. Take the perfect tense, for instance, which indicates completed actions or events with ongoing relevance. It seamlessly fits into the present (“she has studied”), past (“she had studied”), or future (“she will have studied”).

Verb Tenses: Simple Tense 

The simple tense is like the backbone of grammar, covering the basic forms of past, present, and future tenses without any frills! It sticks to the essentials without introducing new information. Forming simple tenses is straightforward, with minimal rules to remember.

Simple Past Tense 

The simple past tense is used for actions completed in the past without addition of any information. The normal rule of changing verbs into its past form is to add the suffix-ed or just the suffix-d for regular verbs. As for irregular verbs, the rule doesn’t apply. For instace, I ate an apple, where ate is the past form of eat.

Simple Present Tense

We use simple presemt tense to talk about present actions or habitual actions of individuals. It is the root form of the verb, and the only changes required is when the subject is third person and singular.

For example: She walks to school every morning

Simple Future Tense

The simple future tense talks about actions that hasn’t happened yet but will happen in the future. To form a sentence in future tense, we just add will before the root verb in the sentence.

For example: I will cut my hair tomorrow.

Verb Tenses: Perfect Tense 

The perfect tense in English is formed by combining the appropriate form of the auxiliary verb “have” with the past participle of the main verb. It indicates actions that are completed or finished at the time of speaking or at a specific point in the past, present, or future. For example, “She has finished her homework” suggests that the action of finishing the homework occurred before the present moment. The perfect tense is versatile and can convey different nuances depending on the context, such as emphasizing the result or duration of an action.

Past Perfect Tense

We use past perfect tense to talk about two actions that happened in the past, one of which took place before the other did. It joins the two acctions that occured sometime in the past.

The structure for Past Perfect Tense would be [had] + [past participle]

For example: Before I arrived at the party, Sarah had already left.

Present Perfect Tense

There are a couple of instances where present perfect tense is suites such as to talk about an ongoing action that started in the past but still hasn’t completed. Similarly, it is also used to talk about an action that has been completed many times in the past and also about actions that has recently been complete including the actions that has happened overtime.

The structure for Present Perfect Tense would be [has/have ] + [been] + [present participle]

For Example: I have studied French for five years.

Future Perfect Tense

The future perfect tense denotes an action that will have been completed by a particular time in the future. Since it relies on a reference to another point in time, the future perfect is commonly accompanied by words such as “by,” “before,” “at,” or “when.”

The structure for Future Perfect Tense would be [will] + [has/have ] + [past participle]

For Example: By the time you arrive, I will have finished cooking dinner.

Verb Tenses: Continuous Tense 

Past Continuous Tense 

The past continuous tense is used to an ongoing action in the past, mainly if the action was interrupted by some other action. The tense is also used to talk about habitual actions of the past.

The structure for Past Continuous Tense would be [was/were] + [present participle]

For example: The kids were playing outside when it started to rain.

Present Continuous Tense

We use Present Continuous Tense for actions that is taking place at the moment or actions that will happen in the near future.

The structure for Present Continuous Tense would be [am/is/are] + [present participle]

For example: We are doing our homework.

Future Continuous Tense

The future continuous tense is utilized to describe actions that will be ongoing over a duration, particularly when a specific time is indicated. It also conveys a higher level of certainty and probability compared to the simple future tense.

The structure for Future Continuous Tense would be [will] + [be] + [present participle]

Example: Tomorrow at 10 AM, I will be jogging in the park.

Verb Tenses: Perfect Continuous Tense 

Past Perfect Continuous Tense  

The past perfect continuous tense is used to talk about ongoing actions that happened in the past, when an another action also took place. It is frequently used with words like when, until, and before to link it with another action that occurred in the past.

The structure for Past Perfect Continuous Tense would be  [had ] + [been] +  [present participle]

For example: She had been studying for two hours before her friends called her for dinner.

Present Perfect Continuous Tense

The present perfect continuous tense indicates a continuous action that began in the past and is still ongoing in the present. It is frequently employed to highlight the duration of the action.

The structure for Future Perfect Continuous Tense would be  [have/has ] + [been] +  [present participle]

Example: She has been working on her novel for three years.

Future Perfect Continuous Tense

The future perfect continuous tense illustrates actions that will be ongoing up to a particular moment in the future. Similar to the future perfect and future continuous, it requires a specified time frame.

The structure for Future Perfect Continuous Tense would be [will] + [have/has ] + [been] +  [present participle]

Example: When the clock strikes midnight, I will have been waiting for the New Year’s fireworks for two hours.