4.20: Simple Verb Tenses

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What is tense? There are three standard tenses in English: past, present and future. All three of these tenses have simple and more complex forms. For now we’ll just focus on the simple present (things happening now), the simple past (things that happened before), and the simple future (things that will happen later).

Tenses

Present Tense

Watch this quick introduction to the present tense:

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://pb.libretexts.org/gw/?p=74

Past Tense

Watch this quick introduction to the past tense:

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://pb.libretexts.org/gw/?p=74

Future Tense

Watch this quick introduction to the future tense:

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://pb.libretexts.org/gw/?p=74

Note: You may have noticed that in the present tense video David talked about “things that are happening right now” and that he mentioned there were other ways to create the past and future tense. We’ll discuss these in further depth in Advanced Verb Tenses.

Conjugation

Most verbs will follow the pattern that we just learned in the previous videos:

Person	Past	Present	Future
I	verb + ed	verb	will verb
We	verb + ed	verb	will verb
You	verb + ed	verb	will verb
He, She, It	verb + ed	verb + s (or es)	will verb
They	verb + ed	verb	will verb

To Walk

Let’s look at the verb to walk for an example:

Person	Past	Present	Future
I	walked	walk	will walk
We	walked	walk	will walk
You	walked	walk	will walk
He, She, It	walked	walks	will walk
They	walked	walk	will walk

Practice

Change the tense of each sentence as directed below. You can type your answers in the text field below:

Make this sentence present tense: Alejandra directed a play.
Make this sentence past tense: Lena will show me how to use a microscope.
Make this sentence future tense: Gabrielly eats a lot of hamburgers.

[practice-area rows=”4″][/practice-area]
[reveal-answer q=”474777″]Show Answer[/reveal-answer]
[hidden-answer a=”474777″]

Alejandra directs a play.
Lena showed me how to use a microscope.
Gabrielly will eat a lot of hamburgers.

[/hidden-answer]

Irregular Verbs

There are a lot of irregular verbs. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of memorization involved in keeping them straight. This video shows a few of the irregular verbs you’ll have to use the most often (to be, to have, to do, and to say):

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://pb.libretexts.org/gw/?p=74

Here’s a list of several irregular past tense verbs.

Practice

Change the tense of each sentence as directed below. You can type your answers in the text field below:

Make this sentence present tense: Ysabella was really good at getting others to open up.
Make this sentence past tense: Rodrigo will have a B+ in his math class.
Make this sentence future tense: Amanda said she didn’t want to go to the party.
Make this sentence past tense: Jordan does five hundred sit-ups.
Make this sentence present tense: Marcela ran a car wash down the street from my house.

[practice-area rows=”4″][/practice-area]
[reveal-answer q=”474777″]Show Answer[/reveal-answer]
[hidden-answer a=”474777″]

Ysabella is really good at getting others to open up.
Rodrigo had a B+ in his math class.
Amanda will say she doesn’t want to go to the party.
- Notice that when the tense of the first verb changed, the tense of the second verb did as well.
Jordan did five hundred sit-ups.
Marcela runs a car wash down the street from my house.

[/hidden-answer]

Text: Verb Tenses. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution

The present tense. Authored by: David Rheinstrom. Provided by: Khan Academy. Located at: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar/partsofspeech/grammar-verbs/v/present-tense-verbs-the-parts-of-speech. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
The past tense. Authored by: David Rheinstrom. Provided by: Khan Academy. Located at: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar/partsofspeech/grammar-verbs/v/the-past-tense-verbs-the-parts-of-speech. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
The future tense. Authored by: David Rheinstrom. Provided by: Khan Academy. Located at: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar/partsofspeech/grammar-verbs/v/the-future-tense-verbs-the-parts-of-speech. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Introduction to irregular verbs. Authored by: David Rheinstrom. Provided by: Khan Academy. Located at: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar/partsofspeech/grammar-verbs/v/introduction-to-irregular-verbs-the-parts-of-speech-grammar. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike