Tense 2 (Past vs present tense)

Past vs present tense

Comparing past tense with present tense

	Affirmative	Negative	Integrative
Present	You live in Spain.	You don’t live in Spain.	Do you live in Spain?
Past	You lived in Spain.	You didn’t live in Spain.	Did you live in Spain?
Present	He lives in Spain.	He doesn’t live in Spain.	Does he live in Spain?
Past	He lived in Spain.	He didn’t live in Spain.	Did he live in Spain?

An approach to understanding classification of tense

An easy way to understand progressive or perfect progressive is adding -ing with the previous type. So, for now let’s focus on the following line.

Present Tense: I write

Past Tense: I wrote

Future Tense: I shall write

Present Perfect Tense: I have written

Past Perfect Tense: I had written

Future Perfect Tense: I shall have written

Examples of present tense:

In case of regular verb:

	First person	Second person	Third person
Singular	I write	You write	He/She/It writes
Plural	We write	You write	They write

For a few verbs:

	First person	Second person	Third person
Singular	I go	You go	He/She/It goes
Plural	We go	You go	They go

Similarly, in case of to be verb:

	First person	Second person	Third person
Singular	I am	You are	He/She/It is
Plural	We are	You are	They are

What do past tense deal with?

Simple past	Events started and finished in the past
Progressive past (Past continuous)	Events that were in progress in the past
Past perfect	Event happened before a mentioned event
Past perfect progressive (Past perfect continuous)	Events continued till a mention time.

Examples of past tense:

Simple past	Two years ago, I studied English in England.
Progressive past (Past continuous)	Events that were in progress in the past
Past perfect	Event happened before a mentioned event
Past perfect progressive (Past perfect continuous)	Events continued till a mention time.

What do present tense deal with?

Simple present	General facts a.       Habits b.      Repeated actions / unchanged situations c.       Emotions and wishes d.      Instructions and directions Regular actions a.       General truth b.      Fixed arrangements c.       Future time, after some conjunctions
Progressive present (Present continuous)	Continuous action in progress now Plans or arrangement for future
Present perfect	Time unspecified past event Past event continued till present Never occurred event
Present perfect progressive (Present perfect continuous)	Past event continuing

Examples of present tense:

Simple present	I smoke (habit). I work in London (unchanged situation). London is a large city (general truth). Walk for two hundred meters, then turn left (instruction or direction). Your exam starts at 9:00 (fixed arrangement). He’ll give it to you when you come next Saturday (future time, after some conjunction).
Progressive present (Present continuous)
Present perfect
Present perfect progressive (Present perfect continuous)

Common verbs in Simple Present tense

Infinitive	I, You, We, They		He, She, It
	Assertive	Negative	Assertive	Negative
To ask	Ask	Do not ask	Asks	Does not ask
To work	Work	Do not work	Works	Does not work
To call	Call	Do not call	Calls	Does not call
To use	Use	Do not use	Uses	Does not use
To have	Have	Do not have	Has	Does not have

Observe:

A) Ex: she studies English every day.

In the example A, the verb expresses an idea of regularity.

So, in this case and pretty much no other cases, you will be able to say that the present simple tense expresses an action that is happening now.

I can understand that future tense is different but can’t grasp how?

As you can see, future tense has a faded difference with the other two tenses. This is because English language explains time with respect to past and present. Future time in English was developed later. Thought English is not as developed in future as it is in past and present, it is still very developed compared to some languages that do not have the use of tense at all.