|
Present
| Past | Perfect
| Future
A verb is the most important word in
the sentence. It is the action or doing
word.
(work, call, sing, jump).
The form of the verb which tells when
the action takes place is called the tense.
The three most common tenses are:
Present Tense
What happens now, or usually happens.
| I work
every day.
I am eating
right now. |
When you use He, She, or It in
a present tense sentence, add -s
to the verb -- he plays,
she plays, it plays.
This is called third person.
Past tense
Expresses an action that ended sometime
in the past.
| I went
to the horse races yesterday. |
Perfect tense
Shows an action that happened at some
indefinite time in the past,
or when an action was repeated several times in the
past.
The perfect tense always needs Have
or Has in front of the verb.
| Susan
has
gone away. |
| My
mother has
worked hard all her
life. |
The Future Tense
In English there are several ways of
talking about the future,
but WILL and GOING TO are the two most
common forms.
| I'll
(I will) see you later. |
| We're
going to (are going
to) see a film tonight. Do you want to come? |
The speaker chooses a future form depending
on when the decision was taken and how the speaker sees
the future event.
Use will ('ll) when you
decide to do something at the time of speaking (right
now).
The speaker has not made a decision before.
| Jane: |
Let's
go on a vacation. |
| Jack:
|
That
would be wonderful!
I will make the reservations.
(Jack decides at the same time Jane speaks.) |
Use going to when the
speaker has already decided to do something.
| Jack: |
Jane
and I have decided to take a vacation.
We are going to go
to Stockholm.
(Jack had already decided to take a vacation
before he spoke to Peter.) |
| Peter: |
Oh,
how nice. |
Examples:
| "John
is going to get married." |
|
"Really?
How wonderful. I will
buy him a present." |
| "There's
someone at the door for you." |
|
"Yes,
it's Sue. We are going to
go to a party." |
Sometimes there is not much difference
between will and going to.
For example, you can say:
| I
think the weather will
be nice tomorrow. |
| I
think the weather is going
to be nice tomorrow. |
|
