Advanced Verb Tenses

Now we’ve mastered the different pieces that we need to understand in order to discuss some more advanced tenses. These advanced tenses were mentioned briefly in Helping Verbs, and they came up again in Participles. These forms are created with different forms of to be and to have:

  • He had eaten everything by the time we got there.
  • She is waiting for us to get there!
  • He will have broken it by next Thursday, you can be sure.
  • She was singing for eight hours.

The different conjugations of the verb to work. The verbs are placed in a sliding scale. The furthest in the past is had worked, then had been working, then worked, then was worked. The present include has worked, has been working, work, and is working. The future is will have worked, will have been working, will work, and will be working.

When you combine a form of to be with the present participle, you create a continuous tense; these tenses indicate a sense of continuity. The subject of the sentence was (or is, or will be) doing that thing for awhile.

  • Present: is working
  • Past: was working
  • Future: will be working (You can also say “is going to be working.”)

Practice

Convert these sentences from simple tenses to continuous tenses:

  1. Ivone wrote a collection of short stories entitled Vidas Vividas.
  2. As a pilot, Sara will fly a lot of cross-country flights.
  3. Zachi reads all of the latest articles on archeology.

When you combine a form of to have with the past participle of a verb, you create a perfect tense; these tenses indicate a sense of completion. This thing had been done for a while (or has been, or will have been).

  • Present: has worked
  • Past: had worked
  • Future: will have worked

Practice

Convert these sentences from simple tenses to perfect tenses:

  1. Ivone wrote a collection of short stories entitled Vidas Vividas.
  2. As a pilot, Sara will fly a lot of cross-country flights.
  3. Zachi reads all of the latest articles on archeology.

You can also use these together. To have must always appear first, followed by the past participle been. The present participle of any verb can then follow. These perfect continuous tenses indicate that the verb started in the past, and is still continuing:

  • Present: has been working
  • Past: had been working
  • Future: will have been working

Practice

Convert these sentences from simple tenses to perfect continuous tenses:

  1. Ivone wrote a collection of short stories entitled Vidas Vividas.
  2. As a pilot, Sara will fly a lot of cross-country flights.
  3. Zachi reads all of the latest articles on archeology.

Sometimes these verb tenses can be split by adverbs: “Zachi has been studiously reading all of the latest articles on archeology.”

Now that we’ve learned about how we create each of these tenses, let’s practice using them. In this exercise, you will be asked to create some original writing. As you do so, use both simple and complex verb tenses.

Practice

Look at the following schedule for a Writer’s Workshop. Write a passage about the schedule as if it were Tuesday at 12:30.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday
10:00 Check-In Genre Speakers Meet Editors/Agents
11:00 Group Orientation Genre Speakers
12:00 Lunch Lunch Check-Out
1:00 Peer-to-Peer Critique Professional Critiques
2:00
3:00 Key-Note Speaker