Hello, my name is Amelia. Today we're going to be looking at different verb tenses.
When you're trying to express yourself it isn't just vocabulary that you need to think about.
It's verb tenses too.
Take the verb 'go' and the word 'skiing', you 'go skiing'.
But now you need to think about the different situations in the present, past, and future, and you need to change the verb go to fit that situation.
Let's have a look at the present first.
I go skiing once a month. She goes skiing on her birthday every year.
We use this to talk about routines or habits.
Here's another present tense.
Hi Jack, sorry I can't talk right now. I'm skiing down the ahhh...
We use it to talk about something that is happening at the moment of speaking.
Now, let's look at the same situation in the past.
If you know exactly when something happened you use the past simple.
The last time I went skiing was in February last year.
We went to Aspen two months ago. It was incredible.
If something happened when you were skiing, then you need to use two different tenses.
I was skiing down the piste when my glasses fell off my face.
We use this for the longer action, and the past simple for the shorter action that interrupted the longer action.
Here's another example.
As I was coming off the ski lift my ski dropped off.
We've talked about the present and the past, so now we need to move to the future.
There are a number of ways to talk about the future, but for now we will just look at these two.
Will, I can't find George anywhere. I will go and see if he's waiting to get on the roller coaster.
Will is used when you make a decision at the time of speaking.
It's spontaneous, not planned.
Here's another future tense.
In July next year we're going on the biggest roller coaster in the world.
This is used to talk about future arrangements, something you've put in your diary.
As you can see, the tense of the verb you use depends on the context you are describing.
Next time you're reading a book or article online or are watching a film or TV program, listen out for the different tenses they use.
Grammar doesn't have to be learned out of a textbook. It's everywhere you look and listen.
Thanks for watching.