According to the lesson, the past, present, and future are linked together by .

Be Careful — Karma Follows You.

Flash courtesy — gostica

The past is our foundation, the bedrock that allows a stable society to exist, it is here that we can see our Heroes, those who have done great and noble deeds and thoughts. In our past we see our failures and our enemies, our victories and our defeats. The past allows the people of the present and the future to learn without having to…

Verbs tell us the time that an action in a sentence happened. The time that a verb shows is called tense. The most common tenses in the English Language are past tense, present tense and future tense.

Examples of Past, Present, & Future Tense Verbs

We usually make the past tense by adding "d" or "ed" to the verb root word. Example; Hannah talked to her friend.

Some verbs have irregular past tenses. Example; Hannah told him about her holiday. We do not add "d" or "ed" to the irregular past tense verb, but change the spelling. Tell becomes told not telled.

We also make the past tense by using the verb "to be" and add "ing" word.

Examples of Verb Tense To Be

Root word	Present tense	Past tense	Future tense
To be	is/ am/ are	was/ were	will/shall

More Verb Tense Examples

Past Tense; She was talking to her friends.	Was is the verb "to be". Talking is the verb root word.
Present Tense; I walk to school.	We make the present tense by using the verb root word or the verb "to be", am and an "ing" word, walking.
Present Tense; I am walking to school.
Future Tense; I will go tomorrow.	We make the future tense by using the verb "to be" and the verb root word. Will is the verb "to be". Go is the verb root word.

Verb Tense - Regular Verbs

Root word Past tense Present tense Future tense

Examples of Regular Verb Tenses
Walk	I walked	I walk	I will walk
Walk plus to be	I was walking	I am walking	I will walk
Help	I helped	I help	I will help
Learn	I learned.	I learn	I will learn
Learn plus to be	I was learning	I am learning	I will learn

Verb Tense - Irregular Verbs

Irregular verbs do not follow the spelling pattern of regular Verbs and some irregular verbs do not change their spelling at all.

Examples of Irregular Verbs Not Following the Spelling Pattern

Root word Past tense Present tense Future tense

Write	I wrote.	I write	I shall write
Write plus to be	They were writing	They are writing	They will write
Grow	It grew	It grows	It will grow
Teach	She taught	She teaches	She will teach
Teach plus to be	We were teaching	We are teaching	We shall teach
Think	He thought	He thinks	He will think

Examples of Irregular Verbs That Do Not Change Their Spelling

Root word Past tense Present tense Future tense

cost	It cost	It cost	It shall cost
hit	They were hitting	They are hitting	They will hit
read	It read	It reads	It will read
let	She let	She lets	She will let
put	We were putting	We are putting	We shall put
shut	He shut	He shuts	He will shut

How many verb tenses are there in English?

Above we’ve described 3 verb tenses, but the answer to this question is either 2, 3, 12, or 16 depending on who you ask. This is obviously not a helpful answer so let’s have a brief and simplified explanation.

There are only 2

To be linguistically precise, the only tenses in the English language are the present and the past with the future “tense” being formed using a helping verb. However, most people, for the purpose of teaching English consider there to be 3 tenses – past, present, and future.

There are 12

Most books and guidance refer to 12 different verb tenses. To get to the answer 12, we need to consider the aspect of a verb.

What’s the aspect of a verb?

The aspect of the verb depends on whether an action as described by the verb is ongoing (progressive), completed (perfect), was ongoing but ended (perfect progressive), or neither ongoing nor completed – just a fact (simple).

So, if we consider the 3 tenses – past, present, and future - and then introduce 4 aspects for each, we can, for simplicity, say there are 12 tenses. This is shown below with examples:

Tense PastPresentFuture  

I danced	I dance	I will dance	Simple	Aspect
I had danced	I have danced	I will have danced	Perfect
I was dancing	I am dancing	I will be dancing	Progressive
I had been dancing	I have been dancing	I will have been dancing	Progressive

What about the “there are 16” answer?

We know verbs have tenses and aspects, but they also have moods - more here

. We won’t go into detail here other than considering the conditional mood. Verb tenses are sometimes shown with a conditional example for each aspect, usually including “would”. For example: I would dance; I would have danced; I would be dancing; I would have been dancing. If we add these to the more commonly accepted answer of 12, we get to 16.

Who introduced the concept of the self in the past present and future time?

What does past present and future represent?

How is the future according to the Child past present future?

What is the concept of past and future?