Tense Times

THERE ARE THREE MAIN TENSES IN ENGLISH (PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE) DIVIDED INTO FOUR ASPECTS (SIMPLE, CONTINUOUS, PERFECT, and perfect continuous).

Data Source: https://ginsengenglish.com/blog/english-verb-tense-frequency # Tense Frequency 1 Simple Present 57.5% 2 Simple Past 19.7% 3 Simple Future 8.5% 4 Present Perfect 6.0% 5 Present Continuous 5.1% 6 Past Continuous 1.4% 7 Past Perfect 1.2% 8 Present Perfect Continuous 0.7% 9 Future Perfect 0.2% 10 Future Continuous <0.1% 11 Past Perfect Continuous <0.1% 12 Future Perfect Continuous <0.1% - The first 5 verb tenses are used approximately 97% of the time in speech and writing.

You can think of the perfect aspect as emphasizing the consequences of a past action. If you go to Rome, for example, this experience will affect you for the rest of your life.

I have been to Rome .......... I went to Rome, and know a bit about what it is like
She has eaten breakfast .......... She ate breakfast, and is not hungry now/can brush her teeth now/go to school, etc

The continuous aspect expresses ongoing or incomplete actions. The simple perfect tense emphasizes the result of an action, while the perfect continuous tense highlights the activity being executed.

I am eating breakfast now .......... I started eating and am not finished
She has been cooking for hours .......... She has been hard at work cooking and is not finished yet

Here they are:
Simple present (S + V + s/es/ies) / (S + do/does + not + V) / Do/does + S + V?).
We use simple verb forms to describe things which are repeated (I live in Moscow.).

Present progressive
Present perfect simple (See Past vs Present Perfect Game here!)
We use the present perfect to say that an action happened at an unspecified time before now, and is still affecting us now. You can also talk about things which haven't happened yet, even though they were expected.

Past

Simple past
Past progressive

Past perfect tense.
The Past Perfect Tense is one of the most difficult tenses for my students to master, but nonetheless it is often used and can help convey nuances of meaning. As our textbook That is because you were talking about two events which happened in the past, firstly the time when the price of the scooter increased, and secondly the time when you tried to buy it.

Present progressive tense.
Present perfect continuous.

Future

MANY STUDENTS associate the modal verb "will" with the future tenses, but it is more complicated than that. Sometimes we use "will" to talk about the present, and sometimes we use present tense constructions to talk about the future. It all depends on the context. Actually, saying "be going to" sounds more certain than "will" when it comes to your belief in the likelihood of a future event. For example, if you see a dark cloud forming in the sky, you could say: "It's going to rain soon!"

That said, "will" can indicate willingness, or unwillingness. For example, an athlete might proclaim emphatically: "I will win the race!"

Future Simple Tense: (S + will/shall + V).

Future Progressive Tense: .
Use this tense to imagine in an event that will be in progress at a certain point in the future.

Future Perfect Tense: (S + will + have + V (past participle).
This tense is used to indicate an event that has a definitive end date. If the activity continues after this hypothetical date, you can use the Future Perfect Continuous Tense.

Conditionals are also a form of tense.

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