How to Understand present, past and future tenses in English

This tutorial tells us about using helping verbs with the simple form. It also gives us information on the differences between the present, past and future tenses.

•Let us see some words in the simple and past forms.

Simple – Live, work, go, wake up

Past – Lived, worked, went, woke up

•"Live" is a regular verb and in the past tense it becomes "lived".

•Similarly, "work", "go", "wake up" are in the simple form and "worked", "went", "woke up" are their respective past tenses.

•"Live", "work", "go", "wake up" – these verbs are not in the present tense. They are in the simple form of the verb. They maybe called the base form or the infinitive.

•Here are some helping verbs – "do", "does", "did", "will". "Do" and "Does" are used to ask questions or negatives in the present form. We use "do" and "does " with the words in the simple form. Example "Where do you live?" or "Where does he work?"

•"Did" is in the past tense and it is also used with the simple verbs. "where did you live?" "Where did you work?"

•"Will" in the future tense and it is also used with the simple verbs. "where will you go?" "I will work tomorrow"

•These are the ways of using the helping verbs with the simple verbs.