Verb Tenses

What are verb tenses?

A verb tense tells the listener or reader when an action takes place. English has three main time frames — past, present, and future — and within each there are four aspects: simple, continuous, perfect, and perfect continuous.

The three time frames

Time frame	Question answered	Simple example
Past	What happened before now?	She walked to school.
Present	What is happening now or generally?	She walks to school.
Future	What will happen after now?	She will walk to school.

The four aspects

Each time frame can express four different aspects of an action:

• Simple — a complete or habitual action: I eat breakfast.
• Continuous — an ongoing action at a moment: I am eating breakfast.
• Perfect — a completed action with a connection to another time: I have eaten breakfast.
• Perfect continuous — an ongoing action with duration up to a point: I have been eating breakfast for an hour.

Overview of all tenses

Tense	Form	Example
Present simple	base verb / +s	She works every day.
Present continuous	am/is/are + -ing	She is working now.
Present perfect	have/has + past participle	She has worked here for years.
Present perfect continuous	have/has been + -ing	She has been working all morning.
Past simple	past form of verb	She worked yesterday.
Past continuous	was/were + -ing	She was working when I called.
Past perfect	had + past participle	She had worked there before.
Past perfect continuous	had been + -ing	She had been working for hours.
Future simple	will + base verb	She will work tomorrow.
Future continuous	will be + -ing	She will be working at noon.
Future perfect	will have + past participle	She will have worked 10 years by then.
Future perfect continuous	will have been + -ing	She will have been working for a decade.

The most important tenses for beginners

Start with these four — they cover the vast majority of everyday English: