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| nurin | Sunday 24th of April 2005 01:04:51 PM |
| need help with grammar - how many tenses are there? i only know 3 of them
1. past tense 2. present tense 3. future tense someone tells me that there is another tense called 'past/present perfect tense'. what does it mean and how to use the tense? could someone give me an example? thanks. | |
| CharonPlu | Sunday 24th of April 2005 01:13:27 PM |
| - I believe there are a total of 12 different tenses...
[b]simple tenses[/b] These describe simple actions. 1. simple present (I eat lunch) 2. simple past (I ate lunch) 3. simple future (I will eat lunch) [b]complex tenses I[/b] These describe actions in progress which include variations on the auxiliary verb [i]be[/i] 4. present progressive (I [i]am[/i] eating lunch) 5. past progressive (I [i]was[/i] eating lunch) 6. future progressive (I [i]will be[/i] eating lunch) [b]complex tenses II[/b] These describe actions associated with a later action which include variations on the auxiliary verb [i]have[/i]. 7. present perfect (I [i]have[/i] eaten lunch) 8. past perfect (I [i]had[/i] eaten lunch) 9. future perfect (I [i]will have[/i] eaten lunch) [b]complex tenses III[/b] These describe perfect actions associated with their time period (present, past, future) which include variations on the auxiliary verbs [i]be[/i] and [i]have[/i]. 10. present perfect progressive (I have been eating lunch) 11. past perfect progressive (I had been eating lunch) 12. future perfect progressive (I will have been eating lunch) **I hope this is not too confusing **An [i]auxiliary verb[/i] is a type of verb that 'helps' the main verb in a sentence. The main verb describes the action, and the auxiliary verb helps do this. | |
| nurin | Sunday 24th of April 2005 11:04:16 PM |
| - thanks [b]CharonPlu[/b]. I'll try to understand them slowly :D | |
