Tenses

For grown-ups: this lesson in words

Years 3 to 6 · English

Tenses: I can use the past, present, progressive and perfect tenses, and keep the tense the same.

1. Mei walks to school every day.

   The verb is walks. It tells us what Mei does.

   This happens now, or again and again, so walks is in the present tense.

   Picture: The sentence "Mei walks to school every day.", with "walks" labelled verb.

2. To talk about the past, many verbs add ed.

   Walk becomes walked.

   Walked is the past tense: it already happened.

   Picture: The root word "walk" and the suffix "ed" join to make "walked".

3. Your turn: Which sentence is in the past tense?

   Choose one:

   • Tom plays football.
   • Tom played football.
   • Tom likes football.

   Answer

   The answer: Tom played football.

   Played ends in ed, so Tom played football is in the past tense.

Words to know

verb:

A doing or being word, like walks, is or ran.

present tense:

Tells us something happens now.

past tense:

Tells us something has already happened.

progressive:

A helper (is, are, was, were) and a verb ending in ing: is walking.

present perfect:

Has or have and the verb: has gone. It links the past to now.

irregular verb:

A verb that changes its shape in the past instead of adding ed: run, ran.