Mastering English Tenses: Present Perfect, Past Perfect & More

Mastering English Tenses

Present Perfect

• Affirmative (A): Subject + Have/Has + Past Participle (3rd column/-ed)
• Negative (N): Subject + Haven't/Hasn't + Past Participle (3rd column/-ed)
• Interrogative (I): Have/Has + Subject + Past Participle (3rd column/-ed)

Uses:

• To talk about experiences over a period of time, contrasting the past and the present.
• To describe an event in the past without a definite time.
• To talk about achievements.
• To talk about multiple actions repeated at different times.

Past Perfect

• Affirmative (A): Subject + Had + Past Participle (3rd Column/-ed)
• Negative (N): Subject + Hadn't + Past Participle (3rd column/-ed)
• Interrogative (I): Had + Subject + Past Participle (3rd column/-ed)

Uses:

• To describe a past event which happened before another event in the past.
• To express the duration of an event up to a certain moment in the past.
• To describe past events that happened before a moment when we forgot, remembered, realized, or knew something.

Present Simple

He/She/It adds (-S). (-es): -ss;-sh;-ch;-o;-x (-ies):-y.

• Affirmative (AF): Subject + Verb
• Negative (NE): Subject + Don't/Doesn't + Verb (infinitive)
• Interrogative (IN): Do/Does + Subject + Verb (infinitive)

Future Simple

• Affirmative (AF): Subject + will + Verb (infinitive)
• Negative (NE): Subject + won't + Verb (infinitive)
• Interrogative (IN): Will + Subject + Verb (infinitive)

Past Simple (Irregular Verbs)

• Affirmative (AF): Subject + Verb (-ed or irregular)
• Negative (NE): Subject + didn't + Verb (infinitive)
• Interrogative (IN): Did + Subject + Verb (infinitive)

Irregular Verbs:

Be/was or were/Been; Begin/began/begun; Become/became/Become; Break/Broke/Broken; Build/Built/Built; Buy/bought/Bought; Catch/caught/Caught; Come/came/Come; Do/did/Done; Draw/Drew/Drawn; Drive/drove/Driven; Eat/ate/Eaten; Feel/felt/Felt; Feed/Fed/Fed; Find/found/Found; Fly/flew/Flown; Forget/forgot/Forgotten; Get/got/Gotten; Give/gave/Given; Go/went/Gone; Have/had/had; Hear/Heard/heard; Know/knew/Known; Leave/left/Left; Lose/lost/Lost; Make/made/made; Meet/met/met; Read/read/read; Run/ran/run; Say/said/said; Steal/Stole/stolen; See/saw/seen; Sing/sang/sung; Sleep/slept/slept; Speak/spoke/spoken; Swim/swam/swum; Think/thought/thought; Take/Took/taken; Wear/wore/worn; win/won/won; Write/wrote/written; Understand/Understood/Understood.