It is no secret that the English language has more than its fair share of tenses. We are very particular about time. To new learners it can be a bit overwhelming, like when I had to try to understand why tables and chairs were boys and girls in French and Spanish. If all chairs are boys, where do little chairs come from? Here are some tips to help you identify tenses in English.

• ING (gerund) – to  be running, to be clapping, to be snacking.. The “ing” tells you this is a continuous tense. Another name for the continuous tenses is progressive tenses, there is no difference it is just another name. ‘ing’ usually means that something is in progress, an activity is happening.

• Have – have eaten, have poked, have enjoyed. The ‘have’ is an auxiliary verb. Auxiliary means that the verb is an “extra support”. It actually provides a lot of information. The auxiliary verb ‘have’ is used in the perfect tenses. If the have is in the present form of the verb and not the past, it is the present perfect. If the verb form is ‘had’ (had eaten, had poked etc..) it is in the past, and is therefore the past perfect. Perfect tenses are usually used to describe something that happened just before something else happened.

So lets look at this: I had been running. Confusing at first, but lets look at the elements. We have the auxiliary verb ‘have’, so this is a perfect tense. The verb have is in the past, so it’s a past perfect tense. We have the auxiliary verb to be, and the main verb ends in the gerund (-ing). So this is a continuous tense. That means this is the past perfect continuous!

I often say that the English language is an art and not a science, but thankfully there is some logic in the grammar! Think of the structure of the verb as a combination of Lego bricks. If it has a ‘have’ brick, it’s a perfect tense, and so on. Break it down and you will understand it.

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