FORMING THE VERB TENSES

 

There are twelve basic tenses in English:

	Simple Tenses	Continuous Tenses	Perfect Tenses	Perfect Continuous Tenses
Pres­ent	infinitive (+s for  he­/she/it) see below for special rules	be (present) + present par­ti­ci­ple	have (pres­ent) + past par­ti­c­iple	have (present) + been + present parti­ciple
Past	infini­tive+ed see below for special rules	be (past) + present par­ti­c­iple	have (past) + past par­ti­ci­ple	have (past) + been + present parti­ciple
Future	will + infini­tive	be (future) + present par­ti­c­iple	have (future) + past parti­ci­ple	have (future) + been + present parti­ciple

 

1) To construct the SIMPLE PRESENT:

     i) For the verbs be and  have, use the chart below.

    ii) For other verbs, if the subject is 3rd person singular (he/she/­it),

        add "-s" to the root form (spelling rules will be covered later).

 

2) To construct the SIMPLE PAST:

     i) For verbs found on the Irregular Verbs list, use the irregular past

        form (for "to be" and "to have", see below).

    ii) For all other verbs, add "-ed"  to the root form (spelling rules

        will be covered later...).