verb tenses

• Verb tenses


  • Present
  • Present Perfect
  • Past
  • Past Perfect
  • Future
  • Future Perfect
• Verbs do a lot of work in sentences. They show actions and states of being. They even take different forms to show time.
• Verb tenses


  • flies
  • flew
  • will fly
• The tense of a verb indicates the time of the action or state of being expressed by the verb.
• Perfect tenses


  Indicate that something happened or existed before a specific point in time
• Each tense has a progressive form

  Used to express continuing action or state of being
• Progressive forms of verb tenses

  • Present progressive
  • Past progressive
  • Future progressive
  • Present perfect progressive
  • Past perfect progressive
  • Future perfect progressive
• The present tense expresses an action or a state of being that is occurring now, at the present time.
• A helping verb is used with a main verb to create a verb phrase.
• Commonly used helping verbs


  • is
  • are
  • has
  • had
  • did
  • does
  • can
  • could
  • should
  • will
• The present perfect tense is also used to express an action or state of being that began in the past and continues into the present.
• The past tense expresses an action or a state of being that occurred in the past but did not continue into the present.
• The past perfect tense expresses an action or a state of being that ended before another past action or state of being occurred.
• The future tense expresses an action or a state of being that will occur.
• Future
• The future tense is usually formed using 'will' or 'shall' plus the base form and expresses an action or a state of being that will occur
• My family will ride the train to Chicago
• We will be arriving at five o’clock (Progressive form)
• We can also express future action in other ways
• We are going to make our own costumes
• They are about to begin the awards ceremony
• I have a test tomorrow
• The future perfect tense is usually formed using 'will have' or 'shall have' plus the past participle and expresses an action or a state of being that will end before another future action or state of being
• By the time you receive this letter, she will have returned home
• After this trip, he will have been to Chicago three times
• Lia will begin the yard work later
• Lia will have begun the yard work by noon
• Jamie lived there for three years
• Jamie has been living there for three years
• Some of the girls were practicing karate
• Some of the girls have practiced karate
• Expresses an action (beginning the yard work) that will occur in the future (later)
• Expresses an action (beginning the yard work) that will be complete before some future action takes place (lunch)
• The action (lived) occurred in the past and did not continue into the present
• The action (has been living) was occurring in the past and continues into the present
• The action (practicing) was occurring in the past and did not continue into the present
• The action (practiced) occurred in the past and continues into the present
• Change the tense of the verb in each sentence, as indicated in parentheses
• I do not miss the bus (Change to future)
• Were they at the party? (Change to past perfect)