One app for all your study abroad needs
Tenses Cheat Sheet: Tenses in English grammar are verb forms that indicate when an action takes place. They are crucial for effective communication as they help to convey the precise timing of events. They are the time travellers of language, guiding us through the past, present, and future. To create creative sentences, one must know some of the basic rules. To learn more about tenses, keep reading the blog, which will help formulate your English vocabulary in a useful way.
This Blog Includes:
Check out more blogs on Tenses here!
Tenses Cheat Sheet- An Overview
To make you understand in a better way, tenses are grammatical forms of a verb that indicate when an action is taking place. They help us to express the time of an event concerning the moment of speaking. There are three primary types of tenses, these are:
Furthermore, there are four different forms of tenses which you must be aware of, these are:
| Simple Tense Form | Continuous Tense Form |
| Perfect Continuous Tense Form | Perfect Tense Form |
So, in total there are twelve tenses which are part of the English grammar that you must be aware of.
Now, that you are aware of all the types of tenses, we have compiled a quick cheat sheet for you which contains all the rules along with the examples which will be quite useful for you.
| Tenses Cheat Sheet | ||
| Tenses | Formula | Example |
| Simple Present Tense | Subject + Verb in the base form/third person plural form + the rest of the sentence | I drink coffee every morning. |
| Present Continuous Tense | Subject + Helping Verb(am/is/are) + Main verb + ing + the rest of the sentence | I am writing a sentence right now. |
| Present Perfect Tense | Subject + Helping Verb (have/has) + Past participle of the main verb + the rest of the sentence along with the time frame | I have finished my homework. |
| Simple Past Tense | Subject + Verb + ed / verb in the past tense + the rest of the sentence | She went to the store yesterday. |
| Present Perfect Continuous Tense | Subject + Have/Has + Been + Verb+ ing + the rest of the sentence | I have been studying for this exam all afternoon. |
| Past Perfect Tense | Subject + Helping Verb (had) + Past participle of the main verb + the rest of the sentence along with the time frame. | When I arrived at the party, everyone had already left. |
| Past Continuous Tense | Subject + Helping Verb(was/were) + Main verb + ing + the rest of the sentence | I was watching TV when the phone rang. |
| Simple Future Tense | Subject + will/shall + V1 + Object | I will visit Paris next year. |
| Past Perfect Continuous Tense | Subject + Had + Been + Verb + ing + the rest of the sentence | I had been studying for three hours when the power went out. |
| Future Perfect Tense | Subject + will have/shall have + V3 + Object | By the time you arrive, I will have finished my homework. |
| Future Continuous Tense | Subject + will be/shall be + V1 + ing + Object | I will be studying for my exam tomorrow afternoon. |
| Future Perfect Continuous Tense | Subject + will have been + V1 + ing + Object | By next summer, I will have been living in this city for five years. |
Also Read: Present Indefinite Tense: Meaning, Structure, Example & Exercise PDF [Available]
Tenses Cheat Sheet- Rules to Remember (PDF)
After you have gone through all the knowledge about tense, how they are used, its rules and examples. We have prepared this quick PDF for you which you can save and download for future reference. You can use all these rules in the PDF to make sentences accordingly.
Also Read: Tenses Rules: Charts, Examples, Types [PDF Available]
Best Books to Study Tenses
When studying tenses to enhance your English, you must have the right set of books that will guide you through. Here is a list of some of the books on tenses to which you can refer.
| Books on Tenses | Authors/Publishers |
| The Book Of English Grammar Tenses A Perfect Book to Improve Your English Communication Skills | Mamta Mehrotra |
| Practice Makes Perfect English Verb Tenses Up Close | Mark Lester |
| The English Tenses Exercise Book | Phil Williams |
| Story Tense: Learn English Tenses Through Stories | Nilam Pathak |
| The English Grammar Workbook for Adults: A Self-Study Guide to Improve Functional Writing | Michael DiGiacomo |
| English Grammar in Use | Raymond Murphy |
| Verb Tenses: The Secret to Use English Tenses Like a Native in 2 Weeks for Busy People | Ken Xiao |
Related reads on Tenses!
FAQs
To memorise tenses easily, you can use flashcards which is a handy tool and will help you memorise verb forms for each tense. You can also quiz yourself using those flashcards to reinforce your memory and grasp all the knowledge you need.
Of all the tenses, the present perfect is one of the most difficult English verb tenses. This tense is used to describe a few different types of actions which include the ongoing action and the one which has not been completed in the past.
The four types of present tenses include: present perfect, past perfect, present continuous tense and future perfect tense.
This was all about “tenses cheat sheet.” Hopefully, you understand the concept and where it’s used. You can also follow Leverage Edu for more exciting and informative blogs on Learn English.
45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today.
