Tenses Of Verbs – The 12 Tenses To Know

These are the 12 tenses of verbs in the English language.

TENSES OF VERBS – A part of improving your English speaking skills is learning about verb tenses and using them correctly in a sentence.

As much as we all know, a verb is an action word, and the forms of the verb change depending on when it happened. There are verb tenses that identify the time when an action occurred. In some cases, an auxiliary verb also known as a helping verb, like will or need is needed.

12 types of verb tenses

• Present Simple – indicates a routine and something you always do every day, month, or year or never do.
  • Past
  • Present
  • Future
• Present Continuous/Progressive – referring to what is happening right now and an action that is not yet complete.
• Present Perfect – the action is complete for present perfect.
• Present Perfect Continuous/Progressive – the action started in the past but it’s continuing now.
• Past Simple – a finished action.
• Past Continuous/Progressive – when an action is not finished in the past and another action interrupts this.
• Past Perfect – two actions occur at two different times.
• Past Perfect Continuous/Progressive – when there’s a complete action that happened before a second action.
• Future Simple – planning to do things in the future.
• Future Perfect – an action is not complete when another action happens in the future.
• Future Continuous/Progressive – an action is completed in the future before another is completed.
• Future Perfect Continuous/Progressive – an action is continued in the future when interrupted by another action.
  • Present
  • Future
  • Past

Check out the table below:

Here’s an example: