At this point in your study of English, you should be familiar with the following tenses with examples of regular and irregular verbs following. There will be some exercises for practice.

This verb tense is used to indicate present action in the present, often by habit, in a range of frequency from "never" to "always," but never to describe an action occurring "right now." Don't forget that almost every verb takes an -s or an -es when following a 3rd person singular, noun or pronoun. Also, you can recognize this tense by the simple form of the verb, or with the helping verbs do or does.

This verb tense is used to indicate an action which is happening right now, at this very moment. It is easy to recognize this tense: it is formed with the present tense of the verb to be as the helping verb, plus the "-ing" form of the main verb, technically known as the present participle.

For example:

You use this tense to indicate an action which happened in the past and is now finished. Regular verbs end in -ed. Irregular verbs must be memorized by looking them up in a verb chart in a grammar book if you do not know the correct form ( for example, p.22 of Azar's Fundamentals and English Grammar ).

For example:

You use this verb tense to indicate an action which was happening at a certain moment in the past, an action which was continuing to happen. It is easy to recognize this tense: it is formed with the simple past tense of the verb to be as the helping verb, plus the -ing form of the main verb.

You use this tense to indicate an action which will take place in the future. The key helping verbs are will and shall. In traditional English, shall is used with the pronouns I and we, and will is used in all the other persons. In American English, we tend to use will in all the people, with all the pronouns.

For example:

You use the future perfect tense to indicate an action which is in the future relative to a past action. You form this tense by using the helping verbs will have and shall have, plus the past participle of the main verb.

For example:

"By the time you receive this letter, I shall (will ) have already left for Paris."

For example:

By 6:00, I shall (will ) have gone to the movies.

Note: See page 38 in Fundamentals of English Grammar for more examples.

The conditional is called a mood, not a tense, but you don't have to worry about this distinction. You use the conditional to indicate an action which will not happen because a "condition" will prevent it from taking place. The key helping verb in the conditional is would. You also use the conditional in the result clause of an "if-clause" construction, if the "if-clause" is in the simple past tense.

For example:

If I had (simple past) enough money, I would (conditional) go to the movies with my friends.

The situation is that you do not have the money, so you can not go to the movies.

Now, here are our three verbs in the conditional mood:

The conditional perfect is similar to the conditional, except it indicates an action which would have taken place in the past if another action had not prevented it from happening. Let’s use the example from above, only with the conditional perfect instead of the conditional.

For example:

If I had had (past perfect) enough money yesterday, I would have gone ( conditional perfect ) to the movies.

The conditional perfect is formed with the key helping verbs would have plus the past participle of the main verb. Now, here are our three familiar verbs conjugated in the conditional perfect:

You use this tense to indicate what has happened at an unspecified time in the past, or to indicate an action that began in the past, but is still happening in the present This tense is formed with the present tense of the verb to have, plus the past participle.

For example:

"I have studied French for three years."

Note: The example above states that it is something you did in the past that you are continuing to do now.

Now, here are our three familiar verbs conjugated in the present perfect tense:

The name of this tense means that it is a "past past" tense. You use the pluperfect tense to indicate an action which took place before another past action. This tense is formed with the key helping verb had, plus the past participle of the main verb.

For example,

"I had studied French for three years before I began studying German."

Now, here are our three familiar verbs conjugated in the pluperfect tense: