What is a simple way to explain the various verb tenses?
Asked by
snowberry (
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November 4th, 2010
I teach English as a second language. In general, I do pretty well, but I have one student with a degree in Arabic, and he’s all about grammar and verb tense.
I have never been able to wrap my mind around the various verb tenses such as simple perfect, progressive, progressive perfect, etc. I suppose the names are part of my problem, but there’s NOTHING simple or perfect about English. It’s just a difficult language. Nevertheless, those are the names, and I have to deal with it. I can’t help my students if I don’t know the material. Do you have a way to explain it to me so I can finally “get it”?
Suggestions?
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6 Answers
I have found that doing it backwards works best for me. If I find a sentence with an elaborate verb structure, I will look up the verb tenses in order to be able to explain it formally.
For example; Chart
Conditional Perfect
If I had been smarter, I would have remained at home.
The hardest tense for foreigners is sentences that use “did” to imply past tense. I did say I like it. Most foreigners, especially Spanish speaking say I did said… also I did went, etc. Logical. In their minds they are talking about something in the past tense, so they conjugate the verb to the form they feel is past tense. I don’t have advise about how to teach verbs in a simple way, but I thought I would mention this as one of the difficult ones.
@gailcalled
Isn’t the chart that you refer to a nice illustration, of how complex the material can be?
I say that, because I feel the example the chart gives for Past Perfect Continuous in the third column is wrong and is actually an example of the Past Continuous.
@whitenoise: I never meant to imply that the subject is simple. I get my tenses correct by instinct and not by labeling. In fact, I never understood the formal structure of the Romance languages until I took French in high school.
The grammar was codified and explained, and I found myself thinking about English in a less informal way. All those ” had had”‘s and “would have had”‘s…
Erk. I see that Dutch is your first language. What is with you Dutch and your ability to know four languages? The size of the country? One of my first friends on Fluther was a 13-year-old Dutch boy whose English was depressingly perfect.
Regarding using “did”: I tell my students that using “did” in a verb is an emphatic way to express a statement. Example:
Mom: Johnny, your teacher called and said you weren’t at school today.
Johnny: I did go to school today! (Makes much more sense than to say “I was at school today.”)
And of course, it is used in the form of a question: Did you know what happened yesterday?
I appreciate all the responses. I’m not sure if I can ‘get it” any better than I did before, but your comments are appreciated. Thank you.
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