Level: intermediate
There are two tenses in English: past and present.
The present tense is used to talk about the present and to talk about the future.
There are four present tense forms:
| Present simple | I work |
|---|---|
| Present continuous | I am working |
| Present perfect | I have worked |
| Present perfect continuous | I have been working |
We can use all these forms:
- to talk about the present:
London is the capital of Britain.
He works at McDonald’s.
He is working at McDonald's.
He has worked there for three months now.
He has been working there for three months now.
- to talk about the future:
The next train leaves this evening at 17.00.
I'll phone you when I get home.
He is meeting Peter in town this afternoon.
I'll come home as soon as I have finished work.
You will be tired out after you have been working all night.
- Present tense 1
- MultipleChoice_MTYyMzQ=
- Present tense 2
- GapFillTyping_MTYyMzU=
Level: advanced
We can use present forms to talk about the past:
- when we are telling a story:
Well, it's a lovely day and I'm just walking down the street when I see this funny guy walking towards me. Obviously he's been drinking, because he's moving from side to side …
- when we are summarising something we have read, heard or seen:
I love Ian Rankin's novels. He writes about this detective called Rebus. Rebus lives in Edinburgh and he's a brilliant detective, but he's always getting into trouble. In one book, he gets suspended and they tell him to stop working on this case. But he takes no notice …
- Present tense 3
- MultipleChoice_MTYyMzY=
- Present tense 4
- GapFillTyping_MTYyMzk=
Hello Aditya,
I'm afraid that's just how the grammar works. A verb in the present form can be used to speak about habitual or regular actions. These actions take place in the present, but also they are also future actions in a sense. The sentence you ask about is a good example -- the board meeting happened in the past, but will also happen again in the future. The best form to speak about this kind of action is the present simple, i.e. the answer is B.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello magnuslin
Your understanding in the first paragraph is correct.
The sentence you ask about in your second question is ambiguous. I think most native speakers would interpret this to mean that you began watching the movie at 8, but the sentence itself is a bit odd, since most movies last for some time. Perhaps someone would say this when they thought the meaning was clear, but if you wanted to be precise about the time period involved, this sentence would be one to avoid due to its ambiguity.
I'd say the answer to your third question is related to this. The only thing the past simple in itself makes clear is that the speaker regards the time as a past time. As you rightly point out, the time referred to can be very short -- nanoseconds -- or very long -- millenia or even aeons. Therefore, if specifying the beginning, end or length of the time period is important, one must use an adverbial or some other phrase to specify the time being spoken about.
Does that make sense?
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello magnuslin
Yes, the past simple can refer to periods of both long and short duration.
I can't speak for all native speakers, but I think most would interpret the sentence in the way I did. My point was that the sentence was unnatural, i.e. not one a native speaker would normally produce, not that people would understand 'at 8' to mean 'began at 8'.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi magnuslin
Yes, what you suggest for your sentence sounds good to me.
Regarding your second question, I'd assume that you meant you either began or finished it at 8, but literally it could mean that you did it in less than one minute. Most of the time, this level of detail is probably not too important, but if it is, usually either the context will make it clear or the speaker will be more specific.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Tim,
Yes, that's fine. The time reference may be implied by the context or it may simply not be stated and we understand that it exists but is not relevant to what we want to say. For example:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Tim,
That's correct, though I think we would be more likely to use the past simple here as the present perfect would suggest a more direct present result such as knowing first aid or being a qualified doctor.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Auden,
The frog says "Read it!"
This is a shortened form of the present perfect: "I have read it!"
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed S. Dawoud
People say 1 and not 2. In other words, 'name and address' are treated as one thing here. In theory, there is no reason you couldn't treat them as separate, but I've never seen or heard a sentence like 2.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello raphway,
Normally opinion words come first, so we would say delicious round rather than round delicious. However, sometimes a speaker or writer might change the normal order round to achieve a certain effect. This is common in marketing, for example.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello RT,
Mixing 'one' and 'they' does not sound natural. You can use 'one' in both parts of the sentence:
(The present perfect is a better choice as the time period is implicitly unfinished, and there is no need to repeat 'there')
Alternatively, you could use a general noun at the start and then a pronoun afterwards:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi RT,
You could actually use either form in either situation. If you consider the understanding to be something that is current then the present is appropriate, even if the conversation happened in the past. Conversely, if you consider the understanding to be a past action then you would use the past form, even if the conversation is still ongoing (but has moved on to other topics, for example).
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello RT,
If you have the report and it is still current (i.e. your wife's situation has not changed), then using present tense (is) makes sense. If you no longer have the report or it is no longer current, then past tense (was) would be better.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello RT,
Yes, that would be correct. You could add '...was fine at the time of the report' if you wished to make it explicit.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello zz11
I'd say that 'read it!' is actually the past simple here -- the present perfect would be 'have read it!'. Part of the joke here is that 'read it' sounds very similar to 'ribbit', which is the word native English speakers often use to simulate a frog's croak (the sound a frog makes). Does that make sense?
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello dipakrgandhi
I understand this sign to be an abbreviated form of 'Orientation programme for (the purpose of) welcoming first year students'. In this case, 'welcoming' is an -ing form used as a noun (also known as a gerund).
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Samshr
That question is grammatically correct. The main clause ('How does she feel?') has subject-verb inversion and the subordinate clause 'when she gets home' has the normal word order.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello MohitUkey
What that really means depends on the context (which is ungiven here), but if you had to choose one, I'd say present habit.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Imran 26
There is no real difference in meaning between this two sentences, just a difference of focus or emphasis. I'd recommend you read our Present perfect simple and continuous page, and you might also find it useful to look at the Present perfect page in our grammar reference.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello karthik_ande
The second one is the better one for most situations, for example, when we know the bus is scheduled to leave at that time. You can read more about the different forms we use to talk about the future on our Talking about the future page.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team