Understanding Verb Tense

What are verb tenses?

Present and present perfect
Past and past perfect
Future and future perfect
Consistency of tense
Review A
Review B

What are verb tenses?

Why do verbs have so many different forms?
Verbs take different forms to show all the
possibilities for when something can happen.

She will draw.

She draws.

She has drawn.

What are verb tenses?

The tense of a verb indicates the time of the
action or state of being expressed by the verb.
Each tense has its own use.
Present Paul lives in Boston.
Present perfect
Past

He has lived in several cities.

Paul once lived in Utah.

Past perfect

He had lived in Georgia before that.

Future Paul will live in Boston for a long time.

Future perfect He will have lived there four years.

What are verb tenses?

Present and present perfect

The present tense expresses a general truth, an

action that occurs regularly, or a state of being
that exists at the present time.
Mom drinks orange juice.
Present

Present

What are verb tenses?

Present and present perfect

The present perfect tense

expresses an action that occurred or a state of
being that existed at an indefinite time in the past
is usually formed with have or has plus the
past participle
Saul has drunk his juice already.
We dont know when Saul drank it.
Present

Present
- - - ->
Present perfect

What are verb tenses?

Past and past perfect

The past tense expresses an action or a state of

being that started and ended in the past.
The scouts hiked all morning.
Past

Past

Present

Present
- - - ->
Present Perfect

What are verb tenses?

Past and past perfect

The past perfect tense

expresses an action or a state of being that ended
before another past action or state of being
is usually formed with had plus the past participle
The scouts had hiked five miles before they
stopped for lunch.
Past

Past
- - - ->
Past Perfect

Present

Present
- - - ->
Present Perfect

What are verb tenses?

Future and future perfect

The future tense

expresses an action that will occur or a state of being
that will exist
is usually formed with will or shall plus the base form
The class will tour the Indian ruins.
Present

Present
- - - ->
Present Perfect

Future

Future

What are verb tenses?

Future and future perfect

The future perfect tense

expresses an action or a state of being that will end
before another future action or state of being
is usually formed with will have or shall have plus the
past participle
By the end of the trip, the class will have toured
three ruins.
Present

Present
- - - ->
Present Perfect

Future

Future
- - - ->
Future Perfect

What are verb tenses?

On Your Own
Change the tense of the boldface verb in each sentence to
the tense in parentheses.
1. Miguel makes the photo larger. (Change to past.)
2. The picnic took place on Sunday. (Change to future.)
3. The boys ran three miles in one hour. (Change to past
perfect.)
4. By then, Aunt Nell had arrived. (Change to future
perfect.)
5. Cynthia had played the violin beautifully. (Change to
present.)
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Consistency of tense
Do not change from one tense to another without
a good reason.
To describe events that occur in the same time
period, use verbs in the same tense.
past tense

past tense

When we went to the movies, we bought popcorn.

present tense

present tense

When we go to the movies, we buy popcorn.

Consistency of tense
For events that occur in different time periods,
use verbs of different tenses to show the order of
events.
present tense

past tense

Lisa plays basketball now, but last year she was

on the volleyball team.
Lisas basketball
playing is occurring in
the present. Her
volleyball playing
happened in the past.

Consistency of tense
On Your Own
Rewrite the paragraph in the past tense. Change verb forms
to make the tenses consistent.
(1) Lightning struck our house, and I run straight for
cover. (2) Oh, no! I exclaim. (3) The electricity was out! (4)
My parents get out the flashlights, and we played a game.
(5) The stove and microwave do not work, so we have a cold
supper in the living room. (6) In the morning,
we are all happy. (7) The sun shone and our electricity is
back on.
[End of Section]

Review A
Change the tense of each boldface verb to the tense
given in parentheses.
1. The children wear their seatbelts. (past perfect)
2. The bell in the clock tower rang. (present)
3. My family will move to Seattle. (present perfect)
4. With confidence, Sara begins the quiz. (past)
5. We sent the packages by airmail. (future)

Review B
Rewrite the paragraph in the past tense. Change verb
forms to make the tenses consistent.
(1) I travel to Denver and visited my grandparents.
(2) Grandpa gave me a big hug when I get off the
train. (3) Then we all go to their house for dinner. (4)
The very next morning Grandma takes me downtown
and we shopped for books and shoes. (5) Then she and
I meet up with Grandpa and went to the museum.

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The End