- Today you are going to learn all about
the 12 or maybe 13 English tenses,
and also some incredible statistics
when it comes to these tenses.
Now, before we get started,
it's important to know that some people say
that there aren't actually 12 tenses,
but for the most part, most courses and English lessons
do say that these are tenses.
And I'm sure that you've learned things like
the past simple, the future perfect, et cetera,
are tenses in English.
So we're going to go with that.
We're going to continue with that.
And before we really go into everything, just very quickly,
my name is Jack from tofluency.com.
Welcome to this lesson.
If you are new here, then consider subscribing.
And then if you also enjoy it, just click the like button
if there's one there, and share this with a friend,
and also know that I'll have some great resources
in the description for you including my book,
The 5-Step Plan for English Fluency,
which is free to download.
So let's quickly talk about the different tenses in English,
which ones they are,
then I'll talk about some incredible statistics
when it comes to these tenses, and then how to learn them.
Okay, so how to learn them.
So we have present, past, and future.
We have the present simple,
the past simple, and the future simple.
We also have the present continuous,
past continuous, future continuous,
and then the present perfect, past perfect,
future perfect, and present perfect continuous,
past perfect continuous, and future perfect continuous.
Now the bonus one,
which some people include is be going to, be going to,
because we tend to use this as a tense.
Now, if you want an in-depth overview
of some of these tenses,
then I'll leave links to lessons I've done.
For example, how to talk about the future in English,
how to use the future tenses.
I've also made one on the present perfect
versus present perfect continuous.
And I've also made a lesson on the present perfect
versus past simple.
In this lesson, I'm just going to go over some of the ways
you can use these tenses,
and give you some examples before we talk about the stats,
and also how to learn these tenses,
so that you can use them naturally.
Now, some interesting things with the present tenses,
the present, simple, and continuous.
We can use these to talk about the future and the past,
with one of them, at least.
So for example, the present continuous,
we use this to talk about what we're doing right now.
For example,
I am recording this podcast for you in the moment,
I am recording this podcast for you.
The present simple is more about what we normally do.
So I can say I record a podcast episode once a week.
So every week, I record a podcast episode,
that's using the present simple,
but we can also use the present simple
if something is on a schedule for the future.
So I can say my flight leaves tomorrow at 7:00 AM.
It's on a schedule, it's for the same for everybody.
The movie starts at four o'clock,
or my English lesson finishes in 10 minutes.
My English lesson finishes in 10 minutes.
This is the present simple.
And the way I like to think about it
is that it's the same schedule for everybody else.
Now the present continuous
is used when you have arranged something.
It's in your diary, okay?
So I can say I'm meeting my friend
for dinner tomorrow at seven.
I am meeting, the present continuous,
my friend tomorrow for dinner at seven.
So it's something that's in my diary, it's on a schedule.
And we can also use the present simple
to talk about the past,
if we want to give a story in the past more emphasis.
For example, okay,
so I go into the shop, and I'm just there.
I'm standing there using the present continuous too,
I'm standing there, and then this guy enters,
and then he says,
so it's like a story to use the present tenses,
which makes it more immediate.
Now the present perfect and past simple can confuse people.
The way I like to teach it
is that if something can still happen in the future,
then we use the present perfect.
Again, I'll leave a link to a lesson I made on this,
but I can say things like I've had three cups of tea today.
Okay, today hasn't finished yet.
There's still more today.
And even though I'm probably not gonna have
another cup of tea,
then I still say I've had three cups of tea today.
Whereas yesterday, I had four cups of tea.
Today, yesterday's over, so we use the simple past.
I had four cups of tea yesterday.
I've had three cups of tea today.
And then the other one I want to just mention
is the future simple, which is will,
we don't use this a lot
when we're talking about plans for the future.
And when we talk about the future,
we generally talk about our plans, and what we intend to do,
or what we're planning to do,
or what we have arranged to do.
So we tend to use the present continuous more.
I'm meeting my friend for dinner tomorrow at seven.
The present simple, not as common,
but specific to my lesson finishes in 10 minutes.
And then we also use be going to.
I'm going to play football tomorrow,
or we're going to leave at about 7:00 AM tomorrow morning.
We're going to leave at about 7:00 AM tomorrow morning.
Now let's talk about some stats now,
because I think this is so interesting.
And I came across a blog post,
which summarizes a study that was done
on the frequency of English verb forms and English tenses.
And it's so interesting.
So somebody that did this study, it's quite old now,
but I imagine it's quite similar in terms of the results
if they did this study again.
And it took three categories,
and again, I'll leave a link to this,
so you can have a look at it.
But it gave three categories of speech, fiction,
and specialized, okay, specialized text.
So speech is when you're speaking.
Fiction is reading a novel,
and specialized is more academic.
And then it looked at how often verb tenses are used,
and just go with the present, past, and future.
All right, in speech,
we use present tenses nearly 70% of the time.
And so when we're talking,
we use present tenses about 70% of the time.
So that includes things like I am doing this, et cetera,
or I'm meeting my friend tomorrow using the present tense.
The past was 22%.
And the future was only 8.7% using the future tenses.
And I think that highlights that we don't tend to use things
like will when we talk about the future.
Now we do use will,
when we are deciding to do something in the moment,
or we're using the first conditional,
or we're talking about future facts,
and we're predicting the future.
For example, you might just say,
ah, okay, yeah, okay.
I'll do it, I'll do it tomorrow.
I've just decided I'll do it tomorrow.
Or you might say, it's gonna rain tomorrow.
Or you might say the weatherman said it will rain tomorrow.
Or the weather says it will rain tomorrow.
It's like a prediction for the future.
But I think this just shows that again,
the present tenses are king
when it comes to speaking past, second,
and then the future last.
And then you might be thinking, okay,
I need to learn advanced English,
things like the future, perfect, continuous.
Okay.
I will have been doing this for a long time.
Or the past perfect continuous.
I had been seen it, for example,
or even just the future perfect.
I will have been here for six months.
Now when it comes to frequency in spoken English,
get this, right?
This is incredible.
The first one is the simple present, 57%.
So we use the simple present as a tense 57% of the time.
The simple past is second with 20%.
And then the simple future, will, is 8.5%.
Present perfect is 6%.
And then the present progressive is 5.1%.
So we use the simple present,
which for most people is the easiest tense to use,
I think, most of the time.
Now when it comes to,
when it comes to the future progressive, the future perfect,
the past perfect continuous,
and even the future perfect continuous.
These are use about 0.1% of the time,
which is a tiny amount.
And this, I think,
highlights what I've been saying for a long time,
that we don't tend to use these tenses
as much as people think we do,
the I will have been doing this for six days, et cetera.
We don't tend to use these tenses.
A lot of the time, we use different tenses instead.
Even the past perfect, okay, is only used 1.2% of the time.
Even the past continuous.
I was standing there is only used 1.4% of the time.
So this is super interesting to me.
Really, really interesting,
because it just shows that
when it comes to speaking English, we use the most,
well, the simplest tenses for most people most of the time.
And this is also true when it comes to vocabulary,
where people want to learn advanced English,
advanced words, idioms, and things like that.
But when it comes to frequency,
we tend just to say things like, I'm doing okay,
or how are you, or it's raining,
for example, all the time.
And I think what what's a good way to think about this
is to say, okay,
what are the most frequently used words,
and phrases, and tenses, and I should master those.
I should master those first
before I start to put lots of effort
into finally understanding how to use the perfect,
or the future perfect continuous,
because again, I don't know how often
people actually use these tenses in real life.
I'm not sure how often I use them,
and the stats suggest that they're just not common
in everyday English.
That's not to say that they're not useful to learn,
but it's important to know,
to focus on things that are commonly used,
because those are the things
that you're going to use in everyday English.
So we have these 13 tenses, or the 12 tenses,
if we're being more specific.
And we've just learned that a lot of these tenses
just aren't used that much in everyday English,
but the simple present is used 57% of the time.
Then it's the simple past,
then the simple future, then the present perfect,
then the present progressive.
The top five tenses are used 95% of the time.
Those five tenses are used 95% of the time.
The other seven are just 5% of the time.
So with that in mind, let's talk about how to learn tenses.
All right?
And there's three things I think
are really important to do when it comes to this.
Understand when the tenses are used,
and that's something I went through very quickly,
to say, all right, we used the present perfect
to talk about something that continues today,
or this week, or this month, or this year.
So to understand when they're used.
And you can do that by taking lessons
like the ones I leave in the description,
or just through getting lots of inputs,
and acquiring this knowledge in a more natural way,
because you'll notice how people use tenses,
how often they use them,
and in which situations they use them in.
So this is important to understand how to use the tenses,
and in which situations.
And then secondly, learn sentences,
so get lots of examples of these tenses,
and learn the sentences.
Because by learning sentences,
you're going to learn the forms.
The I plus have plus done plus it.
Learning those rules, it can help,
but you're going to really internalize this,
and learn it in a more natural way
if you get lots of sentences.
And that's what I talk about here,
I'll actually leave a link to a lesson
where I talk about the power of sentences,
and this is true, especially for verb tenses.
And then thirdly,
try to use these tenses in natural English when you speak.
So when you have learned a tense, and how to use it,
then take a lesson with a teacher,
or get a language exchange partner,
or have conversations with people,
and use the tenses that you've learned
in a way so that you're practicing them in a natural way.
That will really give you the confidence to know,
alright, I'm using them correctly.
And then also listen to other people when they speak,
and notice how they're using tenses too.
Okay, so that's just a fun lesson today,
just to give you an overview
of the different tenses in English,
how often they used, and how to really focus your learning,
so that you can learn the tenses,
and know when to use them,
and to then to be able to use them in a natural way.
Now, feel free to leave a comment
if you're on a platform that has a comment system,
for example, YouTube,
and tell me which tense
you find the most difficult to learn.
And then also tell me if this lesson has made you feel
a little bit better about that tense.
And then use this lesson today as motivation
to create an action plan,
and say, okay, I'm gonna learn these tenses.
I'm gonna focus on the most common tenses, the top five,
and then I'm gonna get lots of sentences,
and will learn how they're used.
And then I'm gonna practice, and get the repetition,
so that I can internalize these rules and structures.
And then I can be able to use them naturally
in a conversation,
and then go to the description,
and check out the other lessons that I've made on this,
and go through them, understand them,
get the examples, write them down,
and use the tools that I've talked about here
in order to really learn them.
And then while you're in the description, get my book.
The 5-Step Plan for English Fluency, it's free to download.
And then share this lesson with a friend.
Okay, well, thank you so much for watching,
or listening to this lesson.
It is great to have you.
Be sure to click that subscribe button
if you haven't done already.
And then again, share this with a friend.
Okay, thank you so much, bye bye for now.