Tenses: A Beginner's Lesson on Choosing the Right Verb Form

By the end of this lesson you will be able to read the time word in a sentence, decide the time and the aspect it points to, and choose the right verb form, so that you can answer "They ______ this road since April" with confidence.

Already confident? Skip to practice: Tenses quiz

Before this: you should be able to find the subject and the main verb, and make the verb agree with its subject. If that feels shaky, read the Subject–Verb Agreement lesson first.

How the twelve tenses are built

A tense tells you two things about a verb: when the action happens, and how it sits in that time.

• The time is one of three: past, present or future.
• The aspect is one of four: simple (the plain fact), continuous (in progress), perfect (finished, or counted up to a point) or perfect continuous (going on up to a point, with the length mattering).

Three times multiplied by four aspects make the twelve tenses. Once you can name the time and the aspect, the form almost writes itself.

Tense forms at a glance

Here is one verb, work, in all twelve forms. Keep it as a model and swap in any verb.

For a fuller revision table with signal words for every form, use the Tenses cheat sheet.

The present tenses

Simple present

Form: the base verb, adding -s or -es for he, she, it. "I work." "She *works***."

Use it for a habit or routine, and for a general truth or a fact that is always so.

• A habit: "My brother catches the 7 o'clock bus every morning." (Tell: every morning.)
• A general truth: "The earth goes round the sun." (A fact is always in the simple present, whatever the time of speaking.)

Present continuous

Form: am / is / are + verb-ing. "She is working."

Use it for something happening at this moment, or around now.

• "Listen! The baby is crying." (Tell: Listen!, which points to right now.)

Present perfect

Form: has / have + the past participle (the third form: gone, seen, done). "She has worked."

Use it for an action whose result matters now, for experience up to the present, and for a state that began in the past and still continues. It does not go with a finished past time such as yesterday or in 2015.

• A result now: "The train has just arrived." (Tell: just.)
• Experience so far: "I have visited that temple twice." (Tell: so far, twice, ever, never.)
• A state still going on: "I have known the Sharmas for ten years." (Tell: for ten years, a state continuing now.)

Present perfect continuous

Form: has / have been + verb-ing. "She has been working."

Use it for an action that began in the past and is still going on, when you want to stress how long it has lasted.

• "They have been repairing this road since April." (Tell: since April, an action still in progress.)

The past tenses

Simple past

Form: the past form of the verb (worked, went, saw). "She worked."

Use it for a finished action at a definite past time.

• "I saw that film last Sunday." (Tell: last Sunday, a finished past time. This is why a definite past time blocks the present perfect.)

Past continuous

Form: was / were + verb-ing. "She was working."

Use it for a longer action that was in progress in the past, often one that a shorter action interrupts.

• "When the lights went out, we were watching the news." (Tell: the short action went out cuts across the longer one.)

Past perfect

Form: had + the past participle. "She had worked."

Use it for the earlier of two past actions, to show which happened first.

• "By the time the guests arrived, my mother had cooked the dinner." (Tell: two past actions; the cooking came first, so it takes had.)

Past perfect continuous

Form: had been + verb-ing. "She had been working."

Use it for an action that had been going on for a length of time up to a point in the past.

• "The players had been practising for an hour when it began to rain." (Tell: for an hour up to a past point.)

The future tenses

Simple future

Form: will + the base verb. "She will work."

Use it for a plain future action, a prediction or a decision.

• "I will call you tomorrow evening."

Future continuous

Form: will be + verb-ing. "She will be working."

Use it for an action that will be in progress at a named future moment.

• "At eight o'clock tomorrow morning, I will be travelling to Jaipur." (Tell: at eight o'clock tomorrow, a named future moment.)

Future perfect

Form: will have + the past participle. "She will have worked."

Use it for an action that will be finished before a stated future time.

• "By this time next year, I will have saved enough for a laptop." (Tell: by + a future time.)

Future perfect continuous

Form: will have been + verb-ing. "She will have been working." It is the least common in exams; recognise it, and use it when a length of time runs up to a future point: "By December she will have been teaching here for ten years."

The tells that decide the tense

In most exam questions, one time word or one piece of context fixes the answer. Learn to spot it first.

Present perfect or simple past?

This is the commonest tenses question, so it earns its own rule.

• A finished past time in the sentence — yesterday, last year, in 2015, two days ago — forces the simple past. You cannot say "I have met him yesterday"; it must be "I met him yesterday."
• No finished past time, and the action counts up to now (experience, a result you can still see, or just / already / so far / since / for) — use the present perfect: "I have met him before."

So in 2015 and since 2015 pull in opposite directions: "She joined in 2015" (finished, simple past) but "She has worked here since 2015" (still going on, present perfect).

A note on two time-only rules

Conditionals. When a sentence opens with if:

• A general truth takes if + simple present in both halves — the zero conditional: "If you heat ice, it melts."
• A real future possibility takes if + simple present, then will + base verb — the first conditional: "If the bus is late, I will take an auto."
• Something that did not happen in the past takes if + had + past participle, then would have + past participle: "If I had studied harder, I would have passed." This is the unreal past: both halves look back at a past that never came true.

Stative verbs. A few verbs describe a state, not an action, and are not used in the continuous: know, believe, understand, like, want, own, belong, and have when it means possess. Say "I know him", never "I am knowing him"; "He has a car", never "He is having a car". ("Having" is fine when have means an action, as in having lunch.)

Worked examples

Example 1: A finished past time

Question: Choose the correct form: I ______ that film last Sunday. (a) see (b) saw (c) have seen (d) had seen

1. Find the time word: last Sunday. It is a finished past time.
2. A finished past time forces the simple past and rules out the present perfect (c) and the present (a).
3. There is only one past action, so there is nothing for the past perfect (d) to come before.

Answer: (b). "I saw that film last Sunday."

The principle: a finished past time such as yesterday, last Sunday or in 2015 takes the simple past, never the present perfect.

Example 2: Since with an action still going on

Question: Choose the correct form: They ______ this road since April. (a) repair (b) are repairing (c) have been repairing (d) repaired

1. Find the tell: since April. Since marks a point in the past, and the repairing is still going on.
2. An action that began in the past and continues now, with the length stressed, takes the present perfect continuous.
3. The simple present (a) and the simple past (d) cannot show an action running from April up to now.

Answer: (c). "They have been repairing this road since April."

The principle: since + a point in time, with an action still in progress, points to the present perfect continuous. (With a state verb, since takes the present perfect simple instead — I have known him since 2010 — because a state verb is not used in the continuous.)

Example 3: One past action interrupts another

Question: Choose the correct form: When the lights went out, we ______ the news. (a) watched (b) were watching (c) have watched (d) watch

1. There are two past actions: the lights went out (short) and our watching (longer).
2. The longer action in progress takes the past continuous; the short action that cuts across it takes the simple past (went out).

Answer: (b). "When the lights went out, we were watching the news."

The principle: when a short past action interrupts a longer one, the longer one is in the past continuous and the short one in the simple past.

Example 4: The earlier of two past actions

Question: Choose the correct form: By the time the guests arrived, my mother ______ the dinner. (a) cooked (b) was cooking (c) had cooked (d) cooks

1. Two things happened in the past: the guests arrived, and the cooking.
2. Which came first? The cooking was done before the guests arrived.
3. Your turn: the earlier of two past actions takes which tense, and which option is it?

Check: the earlier action takes the past perfect (had + past participle), so the answer is (c): "my mother had cooked the dinner."

The principle: with two past actions, the past perfect can mark the earlier one. By the time calls for it, as here. After before and after the simple past is also correct, because the conjunction already shows which action came first.

Example 5: Finished before a future time

Question: Choose the correct form: By this time next year, I ______ enough for a laptop. (a) will save (b) save (c) have saved (d) will have saved

1. Find the tell: by this time next year. By + a future time asks for an action finished before that moment.
2. Your turn: an action completed before a stated future time takes which form?

Check: the future perfect, will have + past participle, so the answer is (d): "I will have saved enough for a laptop."

The principle: by + a future time points to the future perfect — the action is finished before that future moment.

Example 6: Your turn

Question: Choose the verb for each sentence. Cover the table below, write your answers, then check.

1. Water ______ (freezes / is freezing) at zero degrees Celsius.
2. Listen! Someone ______ (knocks / is knocking) at the door.
3. I ______ (know / am knowing) the answer to this question.
4. If you ______ (will heat / heat) this metal, it expands.
5. She ______ (visited / has visited) her uncle three times so far.
6. If I ______ (had seen / saw) the warning, I would have stopped.
7. Don't phone at ten tomorrow morning; we ______ (will write / will be writing) the test then.
8. When we got to the hall, the speaker ______ (left / had left).

The principle: find the tell first, then decide the time and the aspect. The form follows.

A quick checklist

Before you choose, run through four questions:

1. Find the time marker. Is there a word such as yesterday, since, by, now, before or every day?
2. Decide the time. Is the action in the past, the present or the future?
3. Decide the aspect. Is it finished? Still going on? A result you can see now? Did it happen before another action?
4. Pick the form from the table above, and check the verb parts: has / have take the past participle, and every continuous form takes verb-ing.

Common mistakes

• *No past participle after have. It is "I have gone", never "I have went". After has, have and had, use the third form (gone, seen, done), not the past (went, saw, did*).
• Present perfect with a finished past time. "I have seen him yesterday" is wrong; a finished time takes the simple past: "I saw him yesterday."
• A state verb in the continuous. Know, believe, understand and have (meaning possess) are not used with -ing: "I know", not "I am knowing"; "He has a car", not "He is having a car".
• *Base verb after did, does and modals. It is "He did not go", "She does not like tea", "She will come" — never went, likes or comes* after them.
• Mixing the times in a conditional. After if for a real future, use the simple present, not will: "If you ask him, he will help", not "If you will ask him".

Practise and go next

Practise now: Tenses quiz

Next: revise with the Tenses cheat sheet, which lists the signal words for every form. After tenses come two topics that build straight on them: Active and Passive Voice, where the tense of the verb decides the passive form, and Direct and Indirect Speech, where a past reporting verb shifts the tense back.

How this was made: Drafted with AI assistance; spot-checked by the editor on 25 October 2026.