4.4 Past, present and future
The verb describes the action in a sentence. It also tells you when the action happens – in the past, the present or the future. This is called the tense.
For example, ‘I walked’ or ‘I was walking’ is past tense, ‘I walk’ or ‘I am walking’ is present tense and ‘I will walk’ is future tense.
Activity 29 Past, present or future?
Allow about 5 minutes
Read the following sentences and decide whether they are in the past, present or future tense.
1. I am walking.
2. You lost the match.
3. He will run in the race.
4. She posted it.
5. It was raining.
6. We are cooking.
7. You will be going on holiday.
8. They like singing.
Activity 30 Tenses in texts
Allow about 15 minutes
In the text below, highlight the ten mistakes in the use of tenses. Then rewrite the text correctly in the box underneath.
Discussion
Here are the ten mistakes, in bold:
Last Tuesday I will go to the Post Office when I see a dog in the road. It will bark and is running in circles. I will go to talk to it when a lady came round the corner and calls ‘Henry, Henry’. He runs up to her and she will put him on the lead.
Here is the corrected text:
Last Tuesday I was going to the Post Office when I saw a dog in the road. It barked/was barking and was running in circles. I went to talk to it when a lady came round the corner and called ‘Henry, Henry’. He ran up to her and she put him on the lead.
Well done if you spotted some or all of these. When tenses get mixed up the result can be quite confusing.
OpenLearn - Everyday English 1
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