Primary English 1/Tenses

1 What are TENSES?

Tenses show when something happens. For example:

Yesterday, Maria lost her book.

At the moment, Maria likes her book a lot.

Maria will look for her book tomorrow.

2 The PAST Tense

The first sentence happened yesterday. When we talk about things that have already happened, we use the PAST tense. All of these sentences are also in the past tense:

I learned my spellings last week.

I did do my homework!

I was walking to school, when the bell rang.

There are lots of ways to make the past tense. These can be using "did" or "has".

3 The PRESENT Tense

The PRESENT tense shows things that are happening now, or things that you usually do. All of these sentences are in the present tense:

I am running to school.

I like eating chocolate.

I usually wake up at ten o'clock!

There are two easy ways of making the present tense. The first way is to say you do something, for example "I eat", "you jump" and "she has fun". The second way is to say you are doing something. You can do this by adding -ing to the end of an action. For example "I am eating", "you are jumping" and "she is having fun".