Which are the 12 tenses in English ?
Verbs: actions, 1 of the 9 parts of Speech (nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections and articles)
Tenses: past and present (future)
Aspect: simple, continuous (progressive), perfect, perfect continuous (progressive)
All Tenses/12 English Tenses with examples. In this video, we will begin our journey through the 12 tenses of the English language!
You will still need to practice each tense individually, but this video will be a good reminder or refresher before a test.
“Today we are going to talk about all 12 English verb tenses. Now I will not go into detail about every tense, so you still need to study all of the tenses. But if you have an exam coming up, or if you just need a quick reminder of what to think of when you are thinking of past perfect progressive or whatever, this is a good place to refresh your memory and think about things again.
Let’s start with the most important tense, present tense, that’s usually the first one that you learn when you learn English, and we’ll move to Future, which is not as common as present or past.
Present Simple. “I eat pizza everyday.” When we talk about present simple, we are talking about a routine, something that you do often, something that you never do, something that you always do. As you can see, I say “everyday”. So, “Everyday I eat pizza.” Now we make the present simple by using the subject, plus the first form of the verb, and then the object. And remember, with this form of the verb, he/she/it gets an ‘s’ at the end of the verb. So for example: “She eats pizza everyday.”
Present Progressive (Present Continuous). When we talk about present progressive, we are talking about what is happening right now, or we are talking about an action that is not complete. “I am eating pizza now.” Am I finished eating pizza? No, I am still eating right now. It’s very important when you use present progressive to remember this verb “be”. So we make this by using the subject plus “am/is/are” plus the verb, plus “-ing”, plus the object. And remember, the best way to think of this is an action that is not finished.
Present Perfect. “I have eaten all of the pizza.”. The action is complete. The pizza is gone. I ate all of it. Do you see any time words here? No. We are talking about now. You make the present perfect by using the subject plus have or has if it is he/she/it we use has plus the third form of the verb plus the object. Remember the third form of the verb, some people call that the past participle, I just call it verb three or third verb.
Present perfect progressive (Present Perfect Continuous) “I have been eating pizza for two hours.” An action starts in the past, and continues until now. And with progressive, it is still happening, the action is not finished. I have been eating pizza for two hours. Am I still eating pizza? Yes. I have been eating pizza for two hours and I still am eating pizza. So we make this by using the subject plus have or has, he/she/it has, plus been, we always use been for this, plus the verb ing, plus the object.
Alright now we are going to talk about the past tenses. The easiest one?
Past simple. Also probably one of the more important tenses in English to learn. When we talk about past simple, I always think of two things: a finished action and finished time. “I ate pizza yesterday.” Is the action finished? Yes. Am I eating pizza now? No. Is the time finished? Yes. Yesterday is complete it is finished. And we make past simple by using the subject plus the second form of the verb or the verb two as I call it also, plus an object.
Past progressive. “I was eating pizza when you arrived.” When we talk about the past progressive, we are probably talking about two actions, not always, but very often. One action is not complete in the past, it’s not complete at a certain moment. Another action is complete and interrupts the other action. So if you look at the sentence, what verb what action happens first? Was eating. First I was eating. Was I finished eating? No. And then you arrived and you interrupted me eating my pizza. So this is always the action that is not finished in the past. We make this by taking the subject plus was or were, was for singular things and were for plural subjects, plus the verb ing, plus object.
Past Perfect. “I had eaten all of the pizza when you arrived.” The first action is complete, it is completely finished before the second action happens. With past perfect you are always going to have two actions. And this first one is complete. It’s subject plus had plus verb three or the past participle, plus object.
Finally, Past Perfect Progressive. “I had been eating pizza for two hours when you arrived. “ We are talking about a complete action that happened before a second action. That’s the -ing right there. And we make this by taking the subject plus had plus verb plus -ing plus object.
“Whats up guys, it’s me again. And this is part two of all twelve English tenses. So today we are talking about the future tenses.
And I want to say one thing. Many of my students remind me that you can also say “going to (future)” instead of “will” when you are talking about the future, and that is true.
But today I’m not going to use, I “am going to”, I am just going to say “I will” just to keep the examples a little bit more simple. But do remember that English speakers also say “am going to do something” to talk about the future.
First Tense: Future Simple.
This is the really easy one we use to talk about plans, things we will do in the future, tomorrow, next week, in two hours, next year. It’s pretty easy: “I will eat pizza tomorrow”. You just need the subject plus the verb “will” plus the first form of the verb, the basic form of the verb, plus the object.
The nice thing about the future tenses is that they don’t change if your subject changes. “He will eat/she will eat/ they will eat”, it’s all the same. So it’s really easy with the grammar.
Next is the future progressive. And remember just like the other progressive tenses, I said that the action is not complete. So here, the action will not be complete when the other action happens. Kind of like past progressive if you remember that in the first part. So the example: “I will be eating pizza when you arrive.” Now when I say “when you arrive”, will I be finished eating? No I will still be eating the pizza when you arrive and interrupt me.
It’s very similar to past progressive except in the future and not in the past. So it’s subject, plus will, plus be, plus verb ‘ing’ plus object.
The next two tenses are definitely the least commonly used ones in English. They are not really all that popular. You might read them in a book, you might hear your English teacher use them or something like that, but most people don’t use them everyday.
I think English speakers will probably understand it, it’s not like it’s really complex. It’s just not common it’s not really useful.
So first, remember what I said about other perfect tenses is that they use two different times or two different actions. And with future perfect we have two actions here: arrive and will have happened. When I talk about future perfect, I’m talking about an action that will be completed before another action. So read this sentence: I will have eaten all of the pizza by the time you arrive.
This word ‘by’ is something that you hear a lot in the future perfect. By 6:00, by next Tuesday, by next year. Right? If you look at it, it’s subject, plus will, plus have, plus Verb 3 plus object. And remember this is a completed action before another action in the future.
Future perfect progressive is very very similar, and if you learn and you master this tense, then you are very good at speaking English, so… good job. Alright let’s read the example first: I will have been eating pizza for two hours when you arrive. Now the main difference here is you see “for two hours”.
Over here you don’t know “How long?” This helps you understand how long something is happening in the future. So “will have been eating pizza”. Am I finished eating pizza when you arrive? No, I will still be eating pizza and I have been eating pizza for two hours. So we use subject, plus will, plus have, plus been, verb ‘ing’, plus the object.
Alright guys if you liked this video please hit like. Have a good day! Thanks!”
12 Verb Tenses in English
Learn all (12) tenses in English with useful grammar rules, examples and ESL worksheets.
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