The 12 English Tenses

The Present Simple tense is used to express habits, routines, general truths, and facts that are always true. It describes things that happen regularly or repeatedly. Use it for schedules, timetables, and permanent situations.

The Present Continuous tense is used for actions happening right now, temporary situations, ongoing actions around the current time, and planned future arrangements.

The Present Perfect connects past with present. Used for unspecified time in past, actions continuing to now, life experiences, and recently completed actions.

Emphasizes duration of an action starting in the past and continuing now, or recently stopped. Used when duration or evidence of the action matters.

For actions completed at a specific time in the past. Used for completed actions, past habits (with 'used to'), and facts that were true in the past.

For actions ongoing at a specific past moment. Used for background actions interrupted by another action, parallel actions, and setting scenes in storytelling.

Shows one past action happened before another. Used after before/after/when/until, in reported speech, and for third conditionals.

Emphasizes duration of an ongoing past action up until another past event. Shows cause and effect, and how long something had been happening.

For predictions, promises, offers, instant decisions at the moment of speaking, and assumptions about the future.

For actions that will be in progress at a specific future time. Also for polite inquiries and describing background actions in future narratives.

For actions that will be completed before a specified future time. Used with 'by', 'before', or 'by the time'.

Emphasizes the duration of an action up to a specific future time. Shows how long something will have been happening by a certain point.