How many tenses are there in English? How to use it?

What tenses are there in English? Different people will have different answers. Some people say eight tense, some people say 10 tense, some people say 12 tense, some people say 16 tense ... this is the result of our English education for so many years. I have studied English grammar for more than ten years, but I don't even agree on how many tenses.

What is nervousness? Tense refers to the predicate verb of a sentence, that is, only complete sentences have tenses. In other words, the predicate verb part of this sentence carries the information of "time" and "state". Time and state are collectively called tenses.

Then why can't non-predicate verbs be predicate verbs? This is because non-predicate verbs only have "state" information, but not "time" information. On this point, please refer to English grammar, when do verbs use prototypes? And "how to make students understand non-predicate verbs fundamentally?" Waiting for an answer.

What tenses and forms are used in English? This question is how the predicate verb is constructed.

The first word of the predicate verb is used to express "time connotation" and the last word of the predicate verb is used to express "state connotation".

Namely:

Predicate verb = time auxiliary verb+state active word

The following table lists the forms of English predicate verb tenses:

The above table is the following table.

At this time, many people may start to criticize each other: "What? There are 20 tenses and indefinite tenses. Create it yourself! Joke, I heard it for the first time! "

All right! Let's put aside the indefinite tense and take a closer look at the tense table above.

The vertical direction of the table is "time" and the horizontal direction is "state". At 4 o'clock, four states are combined to generate 16 tense. (To learn more about the origin of tenses, please search for the video "English Thinking: Principles of English Tenses" in the headline. )

You may have no objection to this tense 16, but where did the other four infinitives come from? In fact, the infinitive tense is separated from the general tense for the first time. Why did you peel it off? Because these are two completely different tenses, and traditional grammar does not realize the difference and confuses them.

Well, now that we know that there are 20 tenses in English, the next thing we need to know is that these 20 tenses are completely different from each other and have distinct differences in essence. If we don't realize this, it will lead to confusion and misuse of tenses. This is why many students can't tell the simple present tense and present continuous tense, simple past tense and present perfect tense, simple future tense and future continuous tense, simple past tense and past perfect tense, etc.

When you understand the true nature of each tense, you will clearly distinguish when you need to use what tense, and you will not be confused with each other.

The following is an example of "the essential difference between past simple tense and present perfect tense" answered before reposting:

Most students can't tell the difference between past tense and present perfect tense. However, there is a clear boundary between the past tense and the present perfect tense in English, and the difference is clear.

It is often said in the news broadcast that someone has died. What do you think should be translated?

Yes:

He is dead. He passed away.

Or:

He's dead. He passed away.

I. simple past tense:

Definition: Time only refers to the past and has nothing to do with the present, as shown in the following figure:

I ate an apple.

I ate an apple.

Explanation: ate is essentially a combination of did eat, and did is an auxiliary verb of time, indicating the past time; Eating is the active word of state, indicating the general state (statement); Ate's action happened in the past and has nothing to do with the present.

The simple past tense can be used with adverbial of time indicating the past, and its focus and effective time are placed in the past as shown in figure 1.

I wrote a book last year.

Second, the present perfect tense

Definition: Time covers the period from the past to the present, as shown in the following figure:

I have eaten an apple.

I ate an apple.

Explanation: have is an auxiliary verb of time, indicating the present time; Eating is a state active word, indicating that the action is completed; The action "eat" essentially happened in the past, but in order to emphasize that its influence continues and affects the present, the auxiliary verb "you" is combined.

Have in the present perfect tense is the present tense, and its essence is the present tense, so it cannot be used with absolute past tense adverbials, such as yesterday, five days ago, 1980, etc. In the present perfect tense, its focus and effective time position are past and present time, as shown in Figure 2.

therefore

I wrote a book last year.

This is a wrong sentence, because last year means past time.

Summarize the difference between the simple past tense and the present perfect tense;

The action and state of the general past tense only affect the past, and can be used with the adverbial of time indicating the absolute past.

The action and state influence of the present perfect tense has touched the present from the past. Can't be used with adverbial of time indicating absolute past.

However, both the past tense and the present perfect tense can be used with adverbials of time indicating a period, such as:

He lived here for five years.

He lived there for five years.

He has lived here for five years.

He has lived there for five years.

Five years is only a period of time, not an absolute present or past time.

Finally, back to the question at the beginning of the article:

He is dead.

He passed away.

He's dead.

He passed away.

The present perfect tense indicates the relevance between the past action state and the present and the freshness and timeliness of the news, so it is generally used in the present perfect tense.

Test analysis:

The past simple tense is quite different from the present perfect tense.

In the simple past tense, the time is "past" and the state is "general".

In the present perfect tense, the time is "now" and the status is "completed".

D option

The essence of the past simple tense is that the action state happened in the past and has nothing to do with the present.

For example, I didn't see it. Did means absolute past time, and see is the general state of non-predicate verbs. I didn't see it at that time, which met the question, so the answer was correct.

B option

The essence of the present perfect tense is that the time of the action state is related to the present, but the actual action is in the past.

For example, I haven't seen it, and it means absolute present time. But seen's action actually happened in the past. seen itself is a non-predicate verb perfect state, which does not contain time, but seen's action has a relative time, that is, the past relative to the present time. Therefore, the essence of the present perfect tense is that the "hand" brings the effect of the action seen in the past to the present, indicating the freshness of the action, that is, it has not been seen so far. This obviously goes against the meaning of the question.

The connotation of the perfect time has also been seen here-for the predicate, it is ahead of its own time; For non-predicate verbs, it is the advance of time relative to predicate verbs.

A choice

I haven't seen it yet. You can see it when someone tells you, so you can't say you haven't seen it yet, which goes against the meaning of the question.

C option

Not seen passive voice, translated as "I was not seen." . . "Totally wrong.

If grammar is not good, English will certainly not be good. Tense is the core of grammar. English tenses are not only the 20 active tenses mentioned above, but also 20 passive tenses, subjunctive mood and non-predicate verb phrases. It can be said that learning English grammar is learning tenses.

We can't complete tenses here. For other tenses, please refer to the book "English Thinking: Deciphering the Principles of English Grammar" or the video "English Thinking: Building a Perfect Grammar System in Ten Classes".