TENSES: A SUMMARY

A tense refers to a verb form that is used to indicate time. For example, in this sentence: "I went to my Uncle", the verb form 'went' is used to express past time.

TYPES OF TENSES IN ENGLISH

In English language, there is a classification of tenses. These kinds of tenses can be categorised into two main groups:

(A) FIRST CLASSIFICATION OF TENSES 

1. PAST TENSE

(1) Simple Past Tense

(2) Past Continuous Tense

(3) Past Perfect Tense

(4) Past Perfect Continuous Tense

2. PRESENT TENSE

(1) Simple Present Tense

(2) Present Continuous Tense

(3) Present Perfect Tense

(4) Present Perfect Continuous Tense

3. FUTURE TENSE

(1) Simple Future Tense

(2) Future Continuous Tense

(3) Future Perfect Tense

(4) Future Perfect Continuous Tense

(B) SECOND CLASSIFICATION OF TENSES 

1. SIMPLE TENSES

(1) Simple Past Tense

(2) Simple Present Tense

(3) Simple Future Tense

2. CONTINUOUS TENSES

(1) Past Continuous Tense

(2) Present Continuous Tense

(3) Future Continuous Tense

3. PERFECT TENSES

(1) Past Perfect Tense

(2) Present Perfect Tense

(3) Future Perfect Tense

4. PERFECT CONTINUOUS TENSES

(1) Past Perfect Continuous Tense

(2) Present Perfect Continuous Tense

(3) Future Perfect Continuous Tense

Note: Click on each type of tense to read more about the particular tense.