Types of tenses

1. Present tense;

1. Simple present tense: It is used to indicate habitual action, example: she eats every day, we go to church every Sunday, they bathe every day, the sun rises to the east, it sets to the west

Formation of present simple tense

• It is formed by adding “s”, “es” and “ies”

All verbs take “s” in their third person singular (she, he, it), example: she eats beans, he plays football

All verbs which end in “o”, “s”, “ch”, “sh”, “x”, take “es”, example: She goes to church, He brushes his teeth  

For verbs which end with “y”, we change the “y” to “ies”, example: She studies English, he carries cargoes

2. Present continuous tense: It is used to express continuous action. It is formed using “am”, “is”, “are” + the verb with “ing” at the end. Example: I am dancing at the moment, sheis studying English right now, they are sweeping the class.

The “ing” form is called present participle (verb+ing)

Dance-dancing       speak-speaking            talk-talking         play-playing

So, the present continuous tense is formed by combining: The subject + auxillary verb + present participle, examples;

She eats fufu and eru – She is eating fufu and eru

I speak English – I am speaking English

They sweep their class – They are sweeping their class

2. Past tense

1. Simple past tense:It expresses an action in the past. Expressions used here are yesterday, last year, last month, two days ago, example: She cooked food last month, the child cried a lot two hours ago, we went to the beach last week, she fell in a pit last week, she spoke Latin a few minutes ago.

Formation of simple past tense

Generally, to form the past tense we add “d”, “ed”, “ied” to the verb.

We use “d” on verbs which end in “e”, example: dance-danced, celebrate-celebrated, prescribe-prescribed

We use “ed” on verbs without “e” at the end, example: finish-finished, cook-cooked, pass-passed, travel-travelled

We use “ied” on verbs which with in “y”, example: cry-cried, carry-carried, try-tried. There are some exceptions for verbs whose “y” comes after a vowel. In this case, add “ed”, example: play-played, display-displayed, delay-delayed.

2. Past continuous: It is used to express continuous action in the past. It is formed by using the terms “was”, “were” + verb ending with “ing”. Example: (I, he, she, it) was, (you, we, they) were.

I was teaching here last year, you were dancing makossa. yesterday; they were studying English some hours ago.

3. Future tense;

It expresses future actions, something to be carried out in the future, example: I shall come tomorrow, we shall visit them next year, He will pass his exams next term, they will write their test next Monday.

Some expressions used to indicate future tense are tomorrow, next day, next month. It is formed using subject+ “shall, will” + present tense of verb, example: I will work tomorrow, it shall workout next morning, we will sing next Sunday.