All 12 Tenses in English Explained with Rules and Examples

"I wake up early, have breakfast and then catch my school bus." This sentence was created with the knowledge of 12 tense rules in English. This article contains explanation of all tenses in English and their rules with examples and exercises.

Learning 12 tenses in English grammar is important for everyone to have meaningful conversation in English. Good knowledge of tenses helps to make sentences structure in English while helping us to express our ideas and expressions with ease and confidence. 

Tenses are kind of verbs which by certain rules help us make sentences in English for diff. sets of time. By adjoining your knowledge of tense rules with good vocabulary- you can articulate sentences that will not only impress people but also provide you wide array of words to choose from to hold good conversations with your friends, family, colleagues and seniors. 

This article includes details on tenses definition, their rules, examples and exercises. You can get in-depth details on tenses in English and can also download "Tenses in English grammar with examples PDF" by clicking on “Download Guide” button on top of page.

What are Tenses in Grammar?

Tenses - the building blocks of sentences, are a form of verb used to express time of an action and its degree of completeness. Tenses help us to express time of an event, time when a person did something or time when something happened.

Tense Definition

Tenses are the types of verbs that are used to describe the time of an action or state in a manner that when has the action happened, is happening or will happen. To put into simple words, tenses are a grammatical form of verbs that indicate the time, duration or completion of an action. 

As per the Merriam Webster dictionary, - "tenses are distinctions in a form of verb (noun) that are used to express distinctions in time or the duration of an action or state that they express". 

Types of Tenses in English Grammar

Tenses are of three main types, as given below.

1. Past tense
2. Present tense 
3. Future tense

To describe the degree of completeness of an action or situation, the above tenses are further divided into 4 sub-parts, thus giving us the 12 tenses in English structure.  

All tenses in English are given in the table below. 

Now that we have understood “What is the meaning of tense” and "How many tenses are there in English", let us continue to understand each of the 12 tenses in English briefly, followed by the tenses chart that contains the rules for making sentence structure in English. 

What is Present Tense?

Present tense describes work/habit that is occurring at present and its degree of completeness is described by 4 different tense forms. This section contains brief description of 4 present tenses in English to clarify the difference between each one of them and where and when they’re used. We have also given rules for each present tense later in tense chart below. 

1. Present Indefinite Tense- Also known as the Simple Present tense, these tenses do not clarify whether the work that is talked about in the sentence is still ongoing or has been completed. Simple present tenses describe a habit, a daily routine, a general fact, the current moment or a near future event.
2. Present Continuous Tense- These tenses describe that an action/condition is occurring in the current moment and may continue into the future.
3. Present Perfect Tense- This tense describes an action that has been started in the past and has been completed until the current time. This means that the Present Perfect tense describes the work/action that has been “completed” however, some of its effect remains in the present time as well. 
4. Present Perfect Continuous Tense- These tenses describe an action that has started in the past and is still continuing in the present/current time. These actions are not “complete” and are continuing till the present time. 

The future tense describes a situation that doesn’t exist in the present moment or an action that has not happened in the present yet and may happen in the future. The 4 different types of future tenses in English are given below. 

1. Future Continuous Tenses describe an action that will continue or remain in progress in future. 
2. Future Indefinite Tenses describe actions that are going to happen in near future. 
3. Future Perfect Tenses describe actions that will be completed by some time in future. 
4. Future Perfect Continuous Tenses describe actions that will remain progressing until certain time in future. 

Also Read- Future Forms

Tenses Chart

The rules and examples that make all 12 tenses in English structure are given in the tenses chart table below. 

Tense Chart with 12 tenses rules and examples 

Where, V1 is the first form of verb, V2 is the second form of verb and V3 is the third form of verb. 

However, it must be noted that the above ones are the basic rules of tenses for making affirmative sentences through each of the mentioned tense rules. The rules slightly differ in each of the 12 types of tenses when making affirmative, negative and imperative sentences. The rules for making affirmative, negative and interrogative sentences in each of the above-discussed tenses will be discussed in their specified articles. and their examples will be discussed in the later part of this article. 

To download the Tense Chart (with rules and examples) PDF, click on the "Download Guide" button on the top right corner of the page. 

12 Tense Examples

You can construct basic sentence structure in English using broad rules of 12 tenses in English given above. But you can also create more sentence by learning intricacies of all tenses in detail. Here are examples of all 12 tenses in English-

Tenses Exercise

Practice attempting the following tenses exercises to test your current knowledge.

Fill in the Blanks

1. They ............. (not like) spicy food.
2. I .............. (watch) a movie yesterday.
3. She ............ (study) for her test last week.
4. I was .............. (watch) a movie when you called.
5. I will be .......... (work) at 3 PM tomorrow.
6. They will be ............ (play) basketball at the park at 5 PM.
7. I had .............. (finish) my homework before dinner.
8. They will have .............. (not play) basketball by the end of the week.
9. They will have been ............... (play) basketball for two hours by the end of the game.

Answers:

1. don't like
2. watched
3. studied
4. watching
5. working
6. playing
7. finished
8. not played
9. playing

How to Learn the 12 Tenses Easily?

The 12 tenses in English can be memorised by learning their rules and then regularly putting them into use. Now, here is the strategy to learn the tenses easily:

1. Group the tenses- Separate tenses into past, present and future tenses. 
2. Understand the action type described by the different sub-types- Understand which type of actions are described by different sub-classes of tenses viz., simple, continuous, perfect and perfect continuous tenses
3. Write down your understanding of each tense, as writing promotes learning. 
4. Keep on reading different books and different examples so you will get to learn the usage of tenses in different cases. 
5. Practice speaking English with the usage of tenses. Make sure you speak with a fluent/native/expert English speaker so that you will have the scope to identify and correct your mistakes. 

Tip: Create short stories or examples to associate with the type of tenses to create a storyline and memorise easily. 

This was all about the verb tenses, 12 types of tenses with examples and formulas, and the tenses rules chart with examples (tenses chart). If you wish to download the 12 tenses in English PDF, you can do so by clicking on the "Download Guide" button in the top right corner of the page.  

Also Read-

• Simple Present Tense
• Present Perfect Tense
• Present Continuous Tense
• Present Perfect Continuous Tense

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