Verb tenses show time. English has present, past, and future tenses; these have three variations, simple, perfect, and progressive.
1
simple tenses. The simple present is formed with a present form of the verb. The simple past uses the past form. The simple future requires the auxiliary will or shall and a bare infinitive.
Tense
Uses
Examples
Present
current state or action
She walks in the park.
habitual or repeated action
She walks in the park daily.
future state or action
Her train leaves tonight.
Tomorrow is pay day.
Past
past state or action
The book fell on the floor.
habitual or repeated action
We walked in the garden every morning.
Future
future state or action
We will walk in the park.
habitual or repeated action
We will walk in the park every morning.
2
Future time can also be expressed by certain verb phrases like be going to (The tree is going to bloom soon), be to (We’re to have a meeting this morning), and be about to (They are about to start the race).
3
perfect tenses. The perfect tenses show completed state or action. The present perfect is formed with has or have and a past participle. The past perfect, also called the pluperfect, requires had and a past participle. The future perfect uses will have or shall have and a past participle.
Tense
Uses
Examples
Present Perfect
state or action that occurred in the past and may continue to the present
He has walked in the park. I have lived in Arizona all my life.
Past Perfect (Pluperfect)
state or action that occurred before
He had walked in the park that morning. I had lived in Arizona before moving to Oregon.
Future Perfect
state or action that will occur before something else in the future
He will have walked in the park by the time we
arrive. Come March, I will have lived in Arizona
for two years.
4
progressive tenses. The progressive tenses show a state or action that is continuing or in progress. The present progressive is formed with am, is, or are and a present participle. The past progressive requires was or were and a present participle. The future progressive uses will be or shall be and a present participle.
Tense
Uses
Examples
Present Progressive
ongoing state or action
They are walking in the park.
future state or action
I am going to the museum tomorrow.
Past Progressive
state or action ongoing in the past
They were walking in the park.
Future Progressive
state or action ongoing in the future
They will be walking in the park all day. They
will be walking in the park tomorrow.
5
The perfect and progressive tenses are sometimes called aspects instead of tenses since they show how verb action is viewed or experienced with respect to time. The perfect and progressive tenses can be combined to show action in the past that is ongoing and may continue to the point of reference: They have been walking in the park all morning. Before we moved, we had been living in Arizona. By March, we will have been living in Arizona for two years.
6
sequence and consistency of verb tenses. It is important to keep verb tenses in the proper sequence so as not to disrupt the coherence of time in your writing. If the actions you are describing occur at the same time, keep the verbs in the same time:
Once Jane gets angry, it takes a long time for her to calm down.
When the timing belt broke, the engine stopped.
The news broke while she was sleeping.
7
If the actions you are describing occur at different times, use tenses that make logical sense:
We didn’t go to the museum on our last visit, but this time we will certainly go there.
After he had eaten the soup, everyone asked how it was.
Although they will soon be moving out, they have enjoyed living here.
8
The most common problems with tenses arise when you have to shift back and forth from the present to the past and when you are converting direct speech to indirect speech. Consider the following example:
I grew up in a neighborhood that surrounds a small park. We lived on a street that is lined with trees and has small, two-story houses. Many people park their cars on the street, but in the winter there’s so much snow that it’s difficult to find a space. My parents owned an old station wagon. Its heater had not worked for years.
9
In this narrative, the past events (growing up, owning a station wagon, and so on) are kept distinct from the conditions that continue into the present (the neighborhood surrounding the park, the street being lined with trees, and so on). While these conditions could have been described entirely in the past tense, the writer here wants to convey the sense of a continuing familiarity with the old neighborhood. There are, however, many conditions that continue into the present and must be conveyed by the present tense in almost any context: Galileo discovered that Jupiter has (not had) moons.The explorers camped on the Illinois River near where it joins (not joined) the Mississippi.
10
Sometimes writers shift from past to present tense when telling a story to add vividness to the events. This legitimate tense shift is a literary device called the historical present. It is familiar to readers of epic poetry, but people also use it when relating everyday anecdotes:
I was walking down Delancey Street the other day when a guy comes up to me and asks me for the time.
11
When writing about literature, it’s especially easy to mix up tenses. Suppose you are writing about Act V of a play in the present tense and refer back to something that happened in Act II using the past tense (after all, Act II is past in relation to Act V). Once writing in the past tense, you can then be tempted to continue it even when you write about Act V. For this reason it’s best to write about literature in the present tense—whether you are in Act V or Act II: Before he confronts Ophelia, Hamlet unburdens his soul in a soliloquy. You may of course describe biographical details—how a writer lived or what a writer did—in the past tense, but you should keep this distinct from what a writer says or attempts to do in literature, which is eternally present. Thus you can say Shakespeare portrays Hamlet as a very passionate man and Shakespeare presented many of his plays at the Globe Theater in London.
12
When reporting indirect speech, you must convert direct speech in present tense to reported speech in past tense:
Direct Speech: “I am working for a law firm,” she said.
Indirect Speech: She said that she was working for a law firm.
13
If the direct speech is in the past tense, the indirect speech must also be in the past or the past perfect:
Direct Speech: “The play opened last week,” he said.
Indirect Speech: He said that the play opened (or had opened) the week before.
14
The second example raises the issue of whether the past perfect tense is falling out of use in such situations. The Usage Panel prefers the past perfect, but the simple past is often acceptable. Seventy-seven percent prefer had talked to talked in the sentence I asked if he had talked to his doctor. This leaves, of course, 23 percent for whom talked is unobjectionable. The panel is even more tolerant of the simple past in this example, which does not involve the reporting of discourse. In a sentence such as Before I was introduced to her, I heard/had heard the rumor about her, 59 percent would require had heard, while 41 percent would allow heard. Thus it seems likely that many readers will not notice the omission of had—that is, the use of the simple past in preference to the past perfect—in these situations.
15
But if the direct speech is in the perfect or past perfect tense, then the indirect speech must be in the past perfect:
Direct Speech: “I have been working as a plumber for six years,” he said.
Indirect Speech: He said that he had been working as a plumber for six years.
