Tense-related ESL/EFL Topics

This a list of subjects that you should know before proceeding to reading pages about the English tenses. There are pretty basic, still it's good to have a peek at them.

1. Each and every tense let you form questions. This can be done using inversion.

2.  The past and perfect tenses  use the past and past participle forms of the verb, which can sometimes be irregular.

3. In informal writing and speech, contractions are often used.

4. Each tense uses at least one auxiliary verb  (some as many as four!)

5. If we say what somebody else said (=relate it), the sequence of tenses is affected.

6. The conjugation of the auxiliary verb "to be" is required to form the Present Continuous

7. The conjugation of the auxiliary verb "to have" is required to form perfect tenses.

8. What is a verb/subject?

Alright, are you done? Now you can move on to the tenses section.

Present Tenses

Present Simple
Present Perfect
Present Continuous
Present Perfect Continuous

Past Tenses

Past Continuous
Past Simple
Past Perfect
Past Perfect Continuous

Future Tenses

Future Simple
Future Continuous
Future Perfect
Future Perfect Continuous