Language/English/Grammar/Present-Tense

Tenses In English

Types of Tenses:

Simple Present Tense, Simple Past Tense, Simple Continuous Tense, Past Continuous Tense, Past Participle etc...

Simple Present Tense:

1. For singular, add -s to the end of the verb.

2. For plural, no -s at the end of the verb.

3. For the verb to be, we do not use an auxiliary, even for questions and negatives.

• Look at these examples of simple present tense:

	Subject	Verb
+	I, you, we, they	no -s
	He, she, it	-s
-	I, you, we, they	do
	He, she, it	does

When we use Present Tense?

• The keywords are always, often, sometimes and usually

• For example:
• I always play badminton. ( Although there is the keyword "always", the verb after subject "I" cannot add s. )
• He sometimes goes to library. ( Keyword "sometimes" and the subject "he", so can add s. )

Simple Past Tense:

1) add -ed

2) change the verb to the past tense form.

3) Here are the list of past tenses:

Verb	Past Tense	Verb	Past tense
is/am	was	buy	bought
are	were	bring	brought
think	thought	win	won
leave	left	sweep	swept
rise	rose	read	read ( read as red )
swim	swam	blow	blew
tuck	tucked	roll	rolled
began	begun	go	went
hang ( hang someone )	hanged	hang ( hang a picture )	hung
sit	sat	eat	ate
tie	tied	lie	lied
sink	sank	sleep	slept
make	made	take	took
shake	shook	add	added

When we use Past Tense?

• We use past tense after keyword ago, yesterday, this morning, On year/month/day.
• Example:
• I did the homework yesterday. ( Keyword yesterday and past tense of do is did. )
• I was born on 2012. ( Keyword on and past tense of was is "is" )

Bombs of Tenses:

Never use any tenses after these keywords to, can/could, will/would, shall/should, must, may, do/does/did.