THE SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE

Spelling: add -s to most verbs: work/works, driver/drives

add -es to verbs ending in -o: do/does; -s: misses; -x: mixes; -ch/sh: catches/pushes

The use of the simple present tense:

1. Permanent truths: Summer follows spring.

2. `The present period' (this is the situation at present): My sister works in a bank.

3. Habitual actions: I get up at 7.

4. Future reference (for timetables, schedules, TV programmes, etc.): The concert begins at 7.30 next Friday evening.

5. Observations and declarations: I hope so. It says here that… I hate him.

6. Newspaper headlines: MASS MURDERE ESCAPES

7. Instructions: First you weigh the ingredients.

8. Commentaries: Becker serves to Lendi.

9. Plot summaries and historical tables: In Chapter 1, Susan meets David, and agrees to help him. George Washington becomes the first president of the USA.

10. Conditional sentences type 1: If you see Ann I'll ask her. Unless you take the brake off the car won't move.

11. Time clauses: As soon as he spends any money he spends it.

THE PRESENT PROGRESSIVE TENSE

Spelling: we add -ing to most verbs, without changing the base form: wait/waiting

if a verb ends in -e, omit the -e and add -ing: use/using

a single vowel followed by a single consonant doubles the final consonant: sit/sitting

we double the final consonant of two-syllable verbs when the second syllable is stressed: begin/beginning (but `differ/differing)

-ic changes to -ick: picnic/picnicking

-ie changes to -y: lie/lying

The use of the present progressive tense:

1. Actions in progress at the moment of speaking: He is working at the moment.

2. Temporary actions situations/actions, not necessarily in progress at the moment of speaking: My daughter is studying English at Jagiellonian University.

3. A repeated temporary action: Whenever I see Tom he's smoking. You're making the same mistake again.

4. An annoying habit: You're always borrowing money from me.

Adverb is necessary.

Or when the frequency seems unreasonable to him: He's always going away for weekends.

5. Planned actions (+future adverbial reference): We are spending next winter in Australia.

6. Repeated actions with adverbs like always, forever: She is always helping people.

THE SIMPLE PRESENT PERFECT TENSE

The use of the simple present perfect tense:

1. Past actions whose time is not mentioned: I have read the instructions but I don't understand them. Have you had breakfast yet?

2. Recent actions with results in the present: Tom has had a bad car crash. (He's probably still in hospital.) I've washed the car. (It looks lovely.)

3. Actions which usually have results in the present + yet: He hasn't come yet. (so we are still waiting for him)

4. Actions which occur further back in the past, provided the connection with the present is still maintained, that is the action could be repeated in the present: I have seen wolves (it is still possible to see them)

5. Actions recently completed + just: She has just gone out = He went out a few minutes ago. It is not normally used in the negative.

6. Actions occurring in an incomplete period which may be indicated by today or this morning/afternoon/month/year etc. (only up to a certain time)

7. Actions beginning in the past and continuing up to the present moment:

- with time references like before (now), ever, never … before, up till now, so far

I have received 20 emails so far. I have never tasted papaya (before).

- with since/before: I have lived here since 1989. I have lived here for 20 years.

for -a period of time extending into the present: I have lived in London for ten years. (and still live here); can sometimes be omitted, especially after be, live, wait: I've been here two days.; it is not used with expressions beginning with all: They have worked all night.

since - a point in time and means `from that point to the time of speaking: She has been here since six o'clock.

- with time references like lately/recently

- with time references like ever, never, always, occasionally, often, several times

6. With the construction this is: This is the best book I have ever read. It can be used,

without ever, with the first, the second and the only: It is only the second time he has

been in a canoe. This is the first time I have seen a ghost.

7. Newspapers and broadcasts to introduce an action which will then be described in the

simple past tense: Thirty pounds' worth of jewellery has been stolen from the jewelers.

8. Often in letters: Sorry haven't written before but I've been busy lately.

THE PRESENT PERFECT PROGRESSIVE TENSE

The use of the present perfect progressive tense:

1. We use the present perfect progressive tense in place of the simple present perfect when we want to emphasize that something has been in progress throughout a period:

Instead of saying: I have typed all day, we can say, for emphasis, I've been typing all day. Depending on context this may mean I'm still typing (not completed) or I've just recently stopped.

2. Some verbs like learn, lie, live, sit, sleep, stand, study, wait, work, naturally suggest continuity and we often use them with since and for.

We can use them in the simple present perfect tense:

I've waited for two hours. I've worked here since 1998.

But we most often use them in the progressive:

I've been waiting here for two hours. I've been working here since 1998.

3. A number of verbs are not normally used in the continuous form, but some of these can be used in this form in certain cases:

Tom has been seeing about a work permit for you.

She has been having a tooth out.

I've been hearing all about his operation.

THE PAST SIMPLE TENSE

Spelling: we double the final syllable when adding -ed: admit/admitted

verbs ending in -y following a consonant we change the -y inti -I before adding -ed: carry/carried

The use of the past simple tense:

1. Actions completed in the past when the time is given: I met him yesterday.

2. Actions when the time is asked about: When did you meet him?

3. Actions which took place at a definite time even though the time is not mentioned: I bought this car in Montreal.

4. Sometimes a time becomes definite as a result of a question and answer in the resent perfect: -Where have you been? -I've been to the opera. -Did you enjoy it?

5. Actions which time is not given but occupied a period of time now terminated: She lived in Paris for a long time and then she moved to Rome. Did you ever hear Maria Callas sing?

6. It is used for past habit: He always carried an umbrella.

7. It is used in conditional sentences type 2 (after as if, as though, it is time, if only, wish, wood sooner/rather)

THE PAST CONTINUOUS TENSE

The use of the past continuous tense:

1. Past actions which continued for some time, but whose time limits are not known and are not important.

2. Without a time expression it can indicate gradual development: It was getting darker.

3. If we place time expression with a verb in the simple past tense, we convey the idea that the action in the past continuous started before the action in past simple and probably continued after it: When I arrived Tom was talking on the phone. (but When he saw me he put the receiver down.)

4. In descriptions: The girl was playing the piano and singing softly.

5. To express a definite future arrangement in the past: He was busy packing because he was leaving that night.

6. The past continuous with always: He was always ringing me up.

7. As an alternative to simple past to indicate a more casual, less deliberate action: I was talking to Tom the other day.( not clear who started the conversation, it does not matter), but: I talked to Tom. ( I took the initiative)

THE PAST PERFECT TENSE

The use of the past perfect tense:

1. An action which began before the time of speaking in the past and was still continuing at the time: Bill was in uniform when I met him. He had been a soldier for ten years and planned to stay in the army till he was thirty.

2. An action which began before the time of speaking in the past and stopped at the time or just before it: Peter, who had waited for an hour, was very angry with his sister when she finally turned up. (past perfect continuous is also possible)

3. An action which has stopped some time before the time of speaking: He had served in the army for ten years; then he retired and remarried. His children were now at school.

4. When the narrator looks back on earlier action from the certain point in the past: He met her in Paris in 1977. He had seen her ten years before.

5. After when, as soon as, the moment, immediately when we wish to emphasize that the first action was completed before the second one started: When she had sung the song she sat down.

6. With till/until and before to emphasize the completion or expected completion of an action: He refused to go till he had seen all the pictures. Before he had finished his meal he ordered us to back to work.

7. after is normally followed by a perfect tense: After the will had been read there were angry exclamations.

8. Two actions viewed in retrospect from a point in the past: He had been to school but he had learned nothing there, so was now illiterate.

9. In indirect speech: He said that he had been in England for ten years.

THE PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS TENSE

The use of the past perfect continuous tense:

1. When the action began before the time of speaking in the past, and continued up to that time, or stopped just before it: It was now ten o'clock and he was tired because he had been working since dusk.

2. A repeated action in the past perfect can sometimes be expressed as a continuous action: He had tried five times to get her on the phone. He had been trying to get her on the phone.

3. By six o'clock he had repaired the engine. (This job had been completed)

By six o'clock he had been repairing the engine. (It does not tell us whether or not it was completed)

4. He had been painting the door. (The paint was probably still wet)

He had painted the door. (Perhaps recently, perhaps some time ago)

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