Repurposed Presentation of the English Language by drawing inspiration from other users slides. All authors have been referenced in the presentation!

1. Different Tenses by Noa Brown

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Tenses
The word ‘’tense’’ is
derived from the
Latin word
‘’tempus’’ which
means time. A verb
indicates the time of
an action, event or
condition by
changing its form

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The past tense is used to describe events that were completed in the past or to make statements or
generalizations that are tied to the past.
For example:
Juan played the guitar for his girlfriend last night.
There are four past tense forms which are:
Simple Past Tense, Past Continuous Tense, Past Perfect Tense and Past Perfect Continuous Tense
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Tenses may be categorized according to the following time frame

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The present tense is used to make statements of fact or to make generalizations that are true now and will
continue to be true unless something happens to change the situation.
For example:
Juan plays the guitar for his girlfriend every night.
There are four present tense forms which are:
Present Simple, Present Continuous, Present Perfect Continuous and Present Perfect
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The future tense is the verb tense used to describe a future event or state of being. It is used to describe
something that will happen in due time.
For example:
Juan will play guitar for his girlfriend next week.
There are four future tense forms which are:
Simple Future Tense, Future Continuous, Future Perfect Tense and Future Perfect Continuous Tense
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Examples:
Past Tense
• I broke the window
yesterday.
• I played in the garden
• I sang a song at the work
function
• Yesterday I played
football
• Walked
Present Tense
• Today I broke the
window.
• I am playing in the
garden
• I am singing a song at the
work function
• At the moment I am
washing the dishes
• Walking
Future Tense
• I will break the window
next week.
• I will play in the garden
• I will sing a song at the
work function
• Tomorrow I am going to
the zoo
• Will walk

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Tense shifting occurs whenever the verb tense in
a piece of writing changes between the past and
the present tense. As the following examples :
Juan played his guitar which is twenty years old
- Played in sentence = Past tense
- Is in the sentence = Present tense
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Sometimes tense shifting is appropriate and other
times it is simply not. Frequent or unnecessary
shifts in tense can confuse the meaning of the
sentence or piece of writing.
Here are examples of how it may confuse the
meanings:
1) As soon as Leah wakes up, she played her piano
- wakes up = present tense -played = past tense
2) Leah loved her piano, which is stolen yesterday
- loved = past tense -is= present tense
It is of utmost importance to use tenses consistently and
to make shifts only for clear reasons. In order to maintain
this, one needs to understand the tenses discussed in the
presentation.
Tense shifting should be used to describe both a completed
action and a habitual action or state of being. Otherwise it
is best to choose one tense and stick to it in order for your
sentence or story to make sense.

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•
Oksana Pantiuchina , slide two, available at https://www.slideshare.net/aoksana/english-tenses-5610444
•
Raizan, slide three, four and five, available at https://www.slideshare.net/raizan/powerpoint-presentation-on-
tenses?next_slideshow=1
• Nupar Jain, slide 7 , available at https://www.slideshare.net/nupurjain2000/tenses-23460137
• Sarah Tanti, Primary School Teacher. Slide 6. Available at https://www.slideshare.net/sarina_ann/tenses-past-present-
future
• Jeff Moses, English Teacher In Korea,
• Images – slide 1- 5 available linkforall.com
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9. Thank
You!!
Certain slides in this presentation has adapted
slides from Slideshare. Credit has been given
to original authors in the above slide as well as
images. However here is a picture of the witty
young lady who put this together 