In today's entry I will try to make you learn (well, revise or clarify) something about verb tenses. During my years of experience, I have noticed that many students have problems with verbal tenses. This may be due to several reasons. However, today I want to focus on the problems you may have when hesitating between one tense and another because you don't know for sure where you need to place the action in the line of time. As this can be a very abstract notion, I have tried to clarify it through this drawing which I call the Tenses Line.
I find this way of reviewing the tenses really visual and practical and it has usually worked for my students and that is why I would like you to know how it works. First of all, the line is divided in Past, Present and Future sections, each one of them written in a different colour to activate photographic memory. Then, if a verbal tense is Simple we will only find a line; however, if it is Continuous we will find a little rectangle to show that it is an action that takes some time to be done. If you take a good look at Will, you see the line is broken, and I decided to put it that way because we do not know if this action is actually going to happen or not.
After this explanation I want to make a little summary of the verb tenses. Please, take into account that this is an explanation for beginners!
1) Past Perfect Continuous: we use it to talk about an action that happened before another action in the past. If we use this tense we want to emphasize that the action took some time to be done. Some words that you may find with this tense and actually, all the perfect tenses, are just, already, never, ever, yet, since, for.
Ron had been reading this saga before the teacher recommended it.
2) Past Perfect Simple: It is similar to the previous one, but in this case we do not want to highlight the time the action took to be done.
3) Past Continuous: we use this tense to talk about an action that was developing in the past. Some words that you may find with this tense are at this time (yesterday, las week...).
At this time yesterday, Marta was reciting a poem.
4) Past Simple: we use this tense when we want to talk about an action that took place in the past. Some words that you may find with this tense are yesterday, ago, last (week, month, year...).
Yesterday I read my favourite book.
5) Present Perfect Continuous: it is used to talk about an action that started in the past (that is why the line begins in the past section) and continues in the present or to talk about a past action whose consequences are palpable in the present. Same as before, this tense adds the emphasis of time.
The author has been writing detective stories lately.
6) Present Perfect Simple: this tense is used in the same was as the previous one but without emphasizing duration.
Berta has bought 15 novels this year.
7) Present Simple: we use it to talk about habits, routines, preferences, timetables and so on. Some words that you may find with this tense are always, usually, often, rarely, seldom, hardly ever, never...
Tom usually goes to the teather once a month.
8) Present Continuous: we use this tense to talk about an action which is happening at the moment or we can give it a future meaning to talk about arranged plans. Some words that you may find with this tense are at the moment, tight now, now...
Right now, Bella is organising her bookshelves.
9) Be going to: we use it to talk about future plans and also to make predictions with present evidence. Some words that you may find with this tense are next (week, month, year), this (summer, month...).
10) Future Continuous: we use this tense to talk about an action that will be developing at some time in the future.
In the summer, I'm going to acquire the book's special edition.
Tomorrow at this time, Lucy will be doing her literature exam.
11) Will: we use will to talk about future predictions without present evidence and also to make spontaneous decisions. Some words that you may find with this tense are in the future, in X years...
In the future, books will have holograms.
By this time next year, Samara will have read all the stories by Edgar Allan Poe.
So that is the end of it, a piece of cake, isn't it?
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