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English tenses made easy                      

 

 

 Click on each tense for more information

 

                                                                Every day

                                                                      I do

 

I had been doing   I was doing  I have been doing        I am doing            I will have been doing   I will be doing

I had done             I did              I have done                                               I will have done             I will do

 

 Past                                                          Present          Future                                         .

 

 

 

  There seem to be a lot of tenses in the diagram above but there are only three easy things you need to ask yourself to make any of these tenses.

 

1. Am I speaking about the past, present, future or every day.

 

2. Should I use the "ing" form. (Is a period of time involved)

 

3. Should I add a "have" or a "had" (Is the event connected with another)

 
More detail on talking about the future.
 
One of the most difficult things about learning English is the tenses. English has been described as a tense based language. One of the most important things in speaking English is to be able to place yourself on a time line, place the event you are talking about on a time line and decide whether the event is over and if so, if it still effects the present. I would not advise trying to grapple with the problems of tense as a first step in learning the English language, but when as an advanced later stage, it is something you master then your English will sound very good indeed. One comforting thing that I can say is that the English tenses are a lot easier than some of the obscure language in grammar books would lead someone to believe.