That story I just shared with you contains all the 12 tenses of English, but you actually saw
8 of them because we just cut it there at the ending just because you were going to see the
future tenses stick around till the end. To see those tenses in use as well. So let
me ask you, wouldn't it be great if you finally mastered all those verb tenses so that you were
able to feel like you didn't even have to think about them when communicating complex ideas?
As you probably know too well, grammar is one of the things learners tend
to get the most frustrated about. A lot of people even hate grammar.
They think it's made up of such strict rules and structures that it tends to leave them
feeling like they aren't really speaking English, but solving some kind of math equation.
If you think that way I'm here to tell you that you're absolutely right,
it can feel like a math problem in the beginning but with the right strategy you can break through
that initial resistance so that later that past perfect, simple past, perfect continuous,
even the future perfect continuous becomes simply automatic and part of your fluency.
Just like Kerimli, from Azerbaijan, who says that thanks to our channel
his English has developed so much that his level has progressed more than his peers.
So don't forget to hit that Subscribe button and the Bell down below to start
developing your English with all of our lessons. Also if you watch until the end I have a special
gift for you, so make sure you stay tuned. With that said, let's jump into the lesson.
I already mentioned that there are 12 different verb tenses in English, you might already be
familiar with some of them, so that's great! But think of each verb tense as having two levels:
One is Structure, it's the knowledge of which auxiliaries we need to use how verbs change
their conjugation and how we modify sentences to make them positive, negative and interrogative.
The other thing is Case Use, when do we use the present simple
or the present continuous. "Do I need to say this in the present perfect or the present
perfect continuous?" and those types of things. In my opinion understanding the subtleties of the
different uses of each verb tense takes more time to master than understanding
the structure of each different tense. However this is what tends to create a
lot of confusion and many times scares learners, so let's welcome our very own Tour of the Tenses.
The reason why a chart like this one can be very useful is because
it allows you to visualize all the tenses. We're going to fill out the different boxes now.
After that we'll take a second look at the story of Lucas that I shared with you at the beginning
of the lesson, we'll start with the simple tenses and for the sake of simplicity we'll
use the same verb and object: drive my car. Simple past, I drove my car yesterday.
I think you already know this but here we just change the verb adding an -ed or using the correct
word if it's an irregular verb. I used the time word yesterday,
you can use these other ones as well. Sometimes you don't need to say it
if the time of the action is understood. Negative: I didn't drive my car yesterday.
Interrogative: did I drive my car yesterday? Now to the simple present:
I drive my car every day. If I say he or she the verb changes
to drives, these are some of the different adverbs of frequency that you can optionally use as well.
What are the auxiliaries to make a negative or interrogative sentence?
Now, simple future: I will drive my car tomorrow. Here's a fun fact: technically speaking English
doesn't have a future tense, however for the sake of not overcomplicating things, we simply
refer to the use of will as you see here. As the future simple you might also say I'm
going to drive my car. For the adverb of time
you might say any of these words. If you want to take full advantage
of this lesson you can pause this video now and take note of all of these words.
As for the auxiliaries you actually don't need any when you use will. Just add not:
I will not or won't drive my car tomorrow. Will I drive my car tomorrow?
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Let's now move on to the next aspect of the tenses. As a technical side note here, aspect
is when we say simple, continuous or perfect. Tense is past, present and future.
Let's take a look at the continuous aspect in each tense.
In the past continuous I was driving my car
yesterday. When we say something is in the continuous aspect we need to be.
For the past tense we use either was or were. Can you guess how to form the negative and
interrogative form of this sentence? Comment the answer down below.
In the present continuous I'm driving my car now. Instead of now we might say right now or at
the moment. There aren't really many options for the present continuous.
Instead of am we use are or is. For the other pronouns like you, she, he, they, etc.
In the future continuous I will be driving my car when you arrive. This tense indicates
that something will occur in the future and continue for an expected length of time.
The difference with the simple version I will drive my car is that you emphasize that the
action will occur over an extended time frame. For the future continuous you need the base
form of to be. That's not the am is our forms the base form be.
We're now at the midway point of this Tour of the Tenses.
We've already seen the simple and continuous aspect, now it gets a bit more difficult.
Let's take a look at the perfect aspect past perfect: I had driven my car when you arrived.
With this tense we always use the auxiliary have,
furthermore this tense always needs to be associated with another past action
in the simple past. This way the past perfect
indicates that it's an action that happened before the action in the simple past.
Let's take a look at this phrase in the past simple: when I went to Italy.
If you say "I had already learned Italian when I went to Italy"
you're communicating that the action of learning happened before you traveled to Italy.
Present perfect: I have driven my car. Here the verb goes in its past participle form:
Drive is the present form of this verb, drove the past form and driven is the past participle form.
This sentence could also be: I have already driven my car.
There are a lot of different words that you can use with the present perfect.
Now to the future perfect: I will have driven my car by the time you arrive.
We need the auxiliary 'have' for this tense. We almost always use the phrase
by the time when we use the future perfect. With this tense we indicate that an action will be
finished by the time another action takes place. And finally we're now combining two aspects:
perfect and continuous. So the past perfect continuous:
I had been driving my car for two hours when you arrived. Like with the past perfect you
use this tense to talk about an action that took place before another action in the past.
The reason why we say it with a continuous form is to put emphasis on the duration of the action.
Example: I had been waiting for you for one hour when you showed up.
Now the present perfect continuous: I have been driving my car for two hours.
The present perfect continuous is a lot more common than the past
and future present continuous. We use it again to emphasize the duration of an action.
And finally the future perfect continuous:
I will have been driving my car for two hours by the time you arrive.
We use two auxiliaries: have and been. They never change, again like in the future perfect
with the future perfect continuous we need to use the phrase 'by the time' and then
'you' + a sentence in the present simple. I will have been traveling six hours
by the time I land in New York. So here land is in the present.
If you find it difficult to remember new words you've learned check out this lesson I made about
how to develop advanced fluency. You can click up here or the link down below to watch it next.
Let's now go back to the story of Lucas. I'm going to tell it again and I'll highlight some
sentences on screen. You have to think about where it should go in the Tour of the Tenses.
Here we're just highlighting the key words from the sentence. In the sentence in the
present perfect continuous we specify the duration of the action "he's been studying
English for four years." You can also say it with 'since': He's been studying English since 2017.
Let's continue with the story.
Can you also spot the other sentences in the present simple here?
Let's continue on with the story.
So we've reached the end of today's lesson. I hope you found it useful and now for your
special gift we've created a downloadable PDF with the Tour of the Tenses for you!
The link is in the description down below. Before you go what have you learned in this
lesson. You learned that there are 12 tenses in English. We didn't get
in too deep about the use of these tenses but we've shown you the form or structure of them.
I recommend that you don't stop here and continue exploring the tenses. Believe me,
that when you master them your grammar fluency is going to go through the roof.
Lastly, if you're interested in learning Lucas's whole story
let us know down in the comments. We might create a lesson on the
short story we have written about him and his adventure with the English language.