What do we mean by tense?
Tense in grammar, communicates a time reference to the listener or reader. In other words, it tells us WHEN something happened and is shown by different verb forms.
For example:
She walks to school.
She walked to school.
She will walk to school.
She is walking to school.
She was walking to school.
She will be walking to school.
She has walked to school.
She had walked to school.
She will have walked to school.
She has been walking to school.
She had been walking to school.
She will have been walking to school.
As you can see from the sentences above, there are many ways of describing the same event. The verbs in the sentence (walk, was, it, has, had) determine the tense.
Even for a native English speaker, tenses can be difficult to understand. When we learn a language naturally, from birth, we intuitively know which tense to use when speaking and writing. If I asked an English family member to write a sentence in the present continuous tense, they would look at me blankly, even though they obviously use this tense all the time. They wouldn’t know what it was called, or why they chose it!
For a learner of English, tenses can be easily confused and incorrectly used. It helps if grammar rules in their own language are similar, but that is not always the case. It is important that learners regularly listen to other English speakers, read often and practice their speaking skills. They should begin to recognise the patterns and instances when different tenses are used. A good teacher can support the learner to identify their mistakes and provide useful explanations.
Coming soon on this blog, will be diagrams to illustrate the tenses, simple explanations and examples of how and when we use them. There will be exercises to practice and useful links for more information. We will start with the present tenses and work our way through the past and future.
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