tense2
Pronunciation: /tɛns/
Translate tense | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Many people are surprised to be told that English has no future tense — and for everyday purposes it isn't a particularly helpful way of describing how English verbs work. It's more useful to talk about the whole verb phrase and to look at the way it gives information about time and aspect. If we do this, we can say that English has the following tenses:
Definition of tense
noun
GrammarOrigin:
Middle English (in the general sense 'time'): from Old French tens, from Latin tempus 'time'
Grammar
Strictly speaking, in the terminology of modern grammar, English only has two tenses: past and present:
| verb | present tense | past tense |
| walk | walk/walks | walked |
| write | write/writes | wrote |
| simple | continuous | perfect | perfect continuous | |
| past | I walked | I was walking | I had walked | I had been walking |
| present | I walk | I am walking | I have walked | I have been walking |
| future | I shall/will walk | I shall/will be walking | I shall/will have walked | I shall/will have been walking |