Thursday, 1 November 2012

TENSES


Tense
Affirmative/Negative/Question
·         Use
A: He speaks.
N: He does not speak.
Q: Does he speak?
  • action in the present taking place once, never or several times
  • facts
  • actions taking place one after another
  • action set by a timetable or schedule

Present Continuous
A: He is speaking.
N: He is not speaking.
Q: Is he speaking?
  • action taking place in the moment of speaking
  • action taking place only for a limited period of time
  • action arranged for the future
A: He has spoken.
N: He has not spoken.
Q: Has he spoken?
  • putting emphasis on the result
  • action that is still going on
  • action that stopped recently
  • finished action that has an influence on the present
  • action that has taken place once, never or several times before the moment of speaking

A: He has been speaking.
N: He has not been speaking.
Q: Has he been speaking?
  • putting emphasis on the course or duration (not the result)
  • action that recently stopped or is still going on
  • finished action that influenced the present

Simple Past
A: He spoke
N: He had not speak
Q: Has he spoke?                       
  • action finished in the past
  • series of completed actions in the past
  •      together with the Past Continuous - The Simple Past interrupted an action which was in progress in the past.      
Past Continuous

A: He was speaking
N: He was not speaking
Q: Was he speaking?

·         actions happening at the moment of speaking

·         fixed plan in the near future

·         actions happening around the moment of speaking (longer actions)

A: He had spoken.
N: He had not spoken.
Q: Had he spoken?
  • action taking place before a certain time in the past
  • sometimes interchangeable with past perfect progressive
  • putting emphasis only on the fact(not the duration)
A: He had been speaking.
N: He had not been speaking.
Q: Had he been speaking?
  • action taking place before a certain time in the past
  • sometimes interchangeable with past perfect simple
  • putting emphasis on the duration or course of an action

A: He will speak.
N: He will not speak.
Q: Will he speak?
  • action in the future that cannot be influenced
  • spontaneous decision
  • assumption with regard to the future
(going to)
A: He is going to speak.
N: He is not going to speak.
Q: Is he going to speak?
  • decision made for the future
  • conclusion with regard to the future
A: He will be speaking.
N: He will not be speaking.
Q: Will he be speaking?
  • action that is going on at a certain time in the future
  • action that is sure to happen in the near future


Alhamdulillah, at last, I was able to complete this entry. Pheww. 

For your information, I copied the table from ego4u. However, there are some missing tenses from that website, and therefore, I had to add more information from other websites.  As for the extra information and the diagrams, I got it from Englisch-hilfen. That's all, thank you and have a blast day! :)

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