{"id":777,"date":"2016-07-15T22:56:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T22:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level3-english\/?post_type=chapter&p=777"},"modified":"2019-02-22T05:37:20","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T05:37:20","slug":"text-complex-verb-tenses","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-englishcomposition1\/chapter\/text-complex-verb-tenses\/","title":{"raw":"Complex Verb Tenses","rendered":"Complex Verb Tenses"},"content":{"raw":"Now that you've mastered the basic verb tenses, you're ready to move on to the more advanced tenses. These so-called \"complex verb tenses\" were mentioned briefly in\u00a0Verb Types<\/a>, and they came up again in\u00a0Non-Finite Verbs<\/a>.\r\n\r\nConsider an example: \"We had been going<\/strong> to the same restaurant for five years.\"\u00a0What's the difference between the verb in that sentence and the one in \"We went<\/strong> to the same restaurant for five years?\" While both sentences have roughly the same meaning, the first sentence creates a sense of continuity: visiting the restaurant happened\u00a0repeatedly. There's an even bigger difference when you look at future tenses:\r\n
    \r\n \t
  • She will\u00a0eat\u00a0five hundred gummy bears.<\/li>\r\n \t
  • She will have\u00a0eaten\u00a0five hundred gummy bears.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nIn the first sentence, the entire action (eating all those gummy bears) takes place in the future. In the second sentence, we understand that the action will be\u00a0completed sometime in the future.\r\n\r\n\"The\r\n\r\nThese forms are created with\u00a0different forms of\u00a0to be\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0to have.\u00a0<\/em>When you combine a form of\u00a0to be<\/em> with a present participle, you form a\u00a0continuous\u00a0tense<\/strong>;\u00a0these tenses\u00a0indicate\u00a0a sense of continuity or ongoing action. The subject of the sentence was (or is, or will be) doing that thing for a while.\r\n
      \r\n \t
    • Present:<\/strong>\u00a0It is working.<\/li>\r\n \t
    • Past: <\/strong>It\u00a0was working.<\/li>\r\n \t
    • Future:\u00a0<\/b>It\u00a0will be working. (You can also say \"It is going to be working.\")<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nWhen you combine a form of\u00a0to have<\/em> with the past participle of a verb, you form a\u00a0perfect tense<\/strong>; these tenses indicate completed (as opposed to ongoing) action.\r\n
        \r\n \t
      • Present:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/b>It has\u00a0worked.<\/span><\/b><\/li>\r\n \t
      • Past: <\/strong><\/b>It\u00a0<\/b>had worked.<\/span><\/b><\/li>\r\n \t
      • <\/b><\/b>Future: <\/b>It\u00a0will have worked.<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nYou can also combine the continuous and perfect tenses. To have<\/em>\u00a0must always appear first, followed by the past participle\u00a0been<\/em>. The present participle of any verb can then follow. Such\u00a0perfect continuous tenses<\/strong> indicate that the verb\u00a0started in the past and is still continuing:\r\n
          \r\n \t
        • <\/b>Present:<\/b>\u00a0It has been working.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
        • <\/b>Past:<\/b>\u00a0It had been working.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
        • <\/b>Future:<\/b>\u00a0It\u00a0will have been working.<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n
          \r\n

          Practice<\/h3>\r\n