TENSES
1- The main use of the present simple is to express habit ual actions.
He smokes.
2-It is used, chiefly with the verb say, when we are asking about or quoting from bookks, notices or very recently received letters:
What does the notice say?.....It says...
3-It can be used for a planned future action or series of actions particulaly when they refer to a journey.
We leave London at 10.00 next Tuesday and arrive in Paris at 13.00.
4-It is used in conditional sentences , type 1.
If I see Ann I'll ask her.
5-It is used in time clauses:
a)When there is an idea of routine.
As soon as he earns any money he spends it.
*Then we have some words that
can help you to identify this tense in a context:
We use this tense for:
1-An action happening now.
2-An action happening about this time but
not necesarily at the moment of speaking.
* Then we have some words that can help you to identify this tense in a context
1-It is used for recent actions when the time is not mentioned.
I have read the instructions but I don't understand them.
2-Recent actions in the present perfect often have results in the present.
Tom has had a bad car crash . He is still in hospital.
3-Actions with yet.
4-It cam also be used for actions which occur
further back in the past, provided the connexion with the present is still
maintained , that is that the action could be repeated in the present.
*Then we have some words that can help you
to identify this tense in a context
It is used for actions completed in the past at a definite time:
1-for a past action when the time is given:
I met him yesterday-Pasteur died in 1895
2-When the time is asked about:
When did you meet him?
3-When the action clearly took place at a
definite time even though this time is not mentioned.
4-Sometimes the time becomes definite as
a result of a question and answer in the present perfect:
Where have you been ? I've been to the opera.
Did you enjoy it?
5-It is used for an action whose time is
not given but which occupied a period of time now terminated.
He worked in that bank for four years. But he does not work there now.
6-The simple past tense is also used for a past habit.
He always carried an umbrella.
*Then we have some words that can help you
to identify this tense in a context
PAST CONTINUOS
1-It is used for temporary axtions and situations
when we talk.
2-Used without a time expression it can indicate
gradual development ,
It was getting darker
3-It is used with a point in time, it expresses an action which began before that time and probably continued after it.
At
eight he was having breakfast.....
*Then we have some words that can help
you to identify this tense in a context
While During
PAST PERFECT
1-It can be used for an action which began
in the past and still continuing or has only finished.
He had lost his case and had to borrow Tom's pyjamas.
2-It is used for an action that begins in
the past before the time of speaking:
a)was still continuing at that time or just
before it.
Bill
was in uniform when I met him . He had been a soldier for ten years , and
planned to stay in the army till he was thirty.
b)stopped at that time or just before it.
Peter , who had waited since ten o'clock , was very ungry.
c)For an action which stopped some time before the time of speaking.
He had served in the army for ten years, then he retired.
*Then we have some words that can help you
to identify this tense in a context
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