Tenses

There are three standard tenses in English: past, present and future. For now we’ll just focus on the simple present (things happening now), the simple past (things that happened before), and the simple future (things that will happen later).

• Simple Present: work(s)
• Simple Past: worked
• Simple Future: will work

The present tense for singular third person (he, she, it) is slightly different. Look at the tables, below, to see the correct tenses:

Let’s look at the verb to walk for an example:

Irregular Verbs

There are a lot of irregular verbs. Unfortunately, a fair amount of memorization is needed to keep them straight.

For quick reference, below are the tables for to be and to have:

To be

To have

Here’s a list of several irregular past tense verbs.

Complex Verb Tenses

Verbs don’t have to be expressed only in present, past, or future tenses. There are more complex verb tenses that allow us to express actions with a little more variety and difference, which are created by changing the verb aspect. The verb aspect tells us whether a verb is stating a fact, a completed action, an ongoing action, or the end of an ongoing action.

Here are a few examples of these different aspects, all in the present tense:

• Simple Aspect (expressing a fact): I eat.
• Perfect Aspect (expressing a completed action): I have eaten.
• Progressive or Continuous Aspect (expressing an ongoing action): I am eating.
• Perfect Progressive Aspect (expressing the end of an ongoing action): I have been eating.

Each of these aspects can be expressed in past, present, and future tenses. For example, the different verb tenses in the perfect aspect would be:

• Past Perfect: I had eaten
• Present Perfect: I have eaten
• Future Perfect: I will have eaten

These different tenses allow for much more flexibility in our language and expression.

Figure 1. Which words/phrases above are examples of continuous tense? Which are examples of perfect tense? Which are examples of perfect continuous tense?