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

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:

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.

Adapted from "Verb Tenses" by Lumen Learning, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).