Tenses – Part I

The tense of a verb shows not only the time of the action but also whether it is complete or not. There are three tenses in English:

1.    The Present Tense
2.    The Past Tense
3.    The Future Tense

The Present Tense refers to the present time. It has four forms:

a)    Present Indefinite or Simple Present
b)    Present continuous or Present progressive
c)    Present Perfect
d)    Present Perfect Continuous

Read the sentences given below.

1.    He writes.
2.    He is writing.
3.    He has written.
4.    He has been writing.

The sentence 1 is said to be in the present indefinite or simple present tense because it just makes a simple statement about an action – the action of writing – without indicating definitely whether the action is complete or note.

The sentence 2 shows that the action of writing is continuing for some time in the present and hence the tense of the verb is called present continuous.

The sentence 3 shows that the action of writing has been completed or perfected at the time of speaking and hence the tense of the verb is called present perfect.

The verb in sentence 4 is said to be in the present perfect continuous tense because it indicates that the action which started sometime in the past has gone on continuously and is still going on. It is not yet complete.

Past Tense

Just as the present tense has four forms, the past tense also has four forms:

a)    Past indefinite or Simple past
b)    Past continuous
c)    Past perfect
d)    Past perfect continuous

Read the sentences given below:

1.    I wrote.
2.    I was writing.
3.    I had written.
4.    I had been writing.

The verb in sentence 1 is said to be in the simple past because it just makes a simple statement about the action of writing. It doesn’t state whether the action is complete or not.

The verb in sentence 2 shows that the action of writing was continuing for some time in the past and hence the tense of the verb is called past continuous.

Sentence 3 indicates that the action of writing had been completed or perfected before some other action or point of time in the past and hence the tense of the verb is called past perfect.