{"id":1597,"date":"2015-10-05T15:42:44","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T21:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/?p=1597"},"modified":"2016-02-04T15:41:21","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T21:41:21","slug":"drawing-conclusions-about-tense-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/drawing-conclusions-about-tense-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Drawing conclusions about tense (Part I)"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Anna Tarnow<\/p>\n

Tenses can get pretty confusing in writing, even when you think you know what you\u2019re doing. It can also be challenging to explain tenses because time is a confusing concept to talk about. That\u2019s why I love thinking about tenses in terms of visuals. It can sometimes help to map out your tenses to get a better grip on grammar. This great chart (from englishpage.com) gives a really nice sense of tense through simple visuals.<\/p>\n

Simple present
\n<\/strong>This tense is used in two kinds of ways.<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>, simple present can be used to describe a series of repeated actions.<\/em> For example, \u201cShe runs <\/em>every day.\u201d This action is happening repeatedly along a timeline, so it is described by simple present.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>, simple present can be used to indicate generalizations, which describe something that is happening throughout all of time. For example, \u201cBob likes<\/em> to drink coffee.\u201d Bob\u2019s enjoyment of coffee isn\u2019t limited to any one moment, but to all, so this statement is a generalization.<\/p>\n

\"Simple<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Present continuous
\n<\/strong>This tense is used to describe an action that is going on in the present. It can be used either exactly or approximately. Examples: \u201cHe is eating<\/em>\u201d or \u201cThey are finding out<\/em> that the food is gone.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Anna<\/a><\/p>\n

Simple past
\n<\/strong>This tense can also be used in two ways.<\/p>\n

First,<\/strong> the simple past can describe a short completed action, such as \u201cI called<\/em> my lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second,<\/strong> it is used to describe an extended period of time that both began and ended in the past. For example: \u201cI lived<\/em> in Mexico for six years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Anna<\/a><\/p>\n

Past continuous
\n<\/strong>This tense describes an action that happened and was interrupted in the past. For example, \u201cI was cooking<\/em> when the doorbell rang.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Anna<\/a><\/p>\n

Present perfect
\n<\/strong>This tense can be used in two ways.<\/p>\n

First,<\/strong> present perfect describes an event that happened at an unspecified time in the past. It always uses the present form of \u201cto have\u201d (has\/have) and a verb in the simple past. Example: \u201cI have<\/em> seen<\/em> Jeremy before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second,<\/strong> present perfect may describe a change over a period of time. For example, \u201cThis flower has grown<\/em> much taller.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Anna<\/a><\/p>\n

Thinking of tenses in a different way can help make sense of confusing conjugations. Click here<\/a>\u00a0for Part II!<\/p>\n

Anna Tarnow is a senior\u00a0majoring in English and enjoys working on the<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Pilot\u00a0<\/em>newspaper, where she is editor-in-chief.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

“Verb Tense Tutorial.” Table.\u00a0English Page<\/em>. N.p., n.d., Web. 4 Oct. 2015. <http:\/\/www.englishpage.com\/verbpage\/verbtenseintro.html>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Anna Tarnow Tenses can get pretty confusing in writing, even when you think you know what you\u2019re doing. It can also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,109],"tags":[92,132,106],"class_list":["post-1597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clarity","category-writeherewritenowwriteon","tag-editing","tag-tenses","tag-verbs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5DI6r-pL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1597"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1623,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597\/revisions\/1623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}