Tenses and Verb Forms: notes

Tenses

• Simple present: habits and facts. She walks to school.
• Present continuous: happening now. She is walking.
• Simple past: finished at a known time. I saw him yesterday.
• Present perfect: past with a link to now. I have lived here for ten years. Do not use it with a finished time such as yesterday.
• Past perfect: the earlier of two past actions. The bus had left when I arrived.

Irregular Verbs

• Learn the three forms: go, went, gone; write, wrote, written; bring, brought, brought.
• After have, has, had use the past participle: has gone, not has went.

Conditionals and Modals

• Real condition: If it rains, we will stay home.
• Unreal condition: If I were rich, I would buy a car.
• Past unreal: If she had studied, she would have passed.
• Modals are followed by the base verb: can go, must see, should help.

Active and Passive

• Active: The teacher marked the books.
• Passive: The books were marked by the teacher. Use a form of be plus the past participle.