Tense Usage

This page has examples of the various uses of the most common tenses in English, together with many sentences exemplifying those uses.

Click a tense in the table below to see its common uses. Or click for the complete list.

PAST

PRESENT

FUTURE

past simple

past continuous

past perfect

past perfect continuous

present simple

present continuous

present perfect

present perfect continuous

will

going to

future continuous

future perfect

future perfect continuous

Here is a quiz on tense usage based on the contents of this page. And here is an alternative presentation of the information on this page.

Note: Modern grammarians do not use the term 'tense' for the verb constructions in the table above. There's more on this terminological issue at: First information about tenses.