One of my common mistakes is tense. According to Wikipedia, grammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs. [1] Generally, we can categorise the tenses into three main groups which are past, present and future. Each of this has simple forms, progressive forms, perfect forms, and perfect progressive forms.
Simple present tense is used to express the action or situation that exists only now or being repeated in a period of time. For example, “I work at a law firm.” While the simple past tense is used to express the action or situation that already ended. For example, “I worked at a law firm last before.” To describe action or situation that will be happen in the future, simple future tense will be used. For example, “I will work at a law firm next month.”
Present progressive tense is used to show the action that is happening now. This tense is formed by using am or is or are with the verb form ending with -ing. For example, “I am working at a law firm now.” But we use past progressive tense to describe the action that is happening in the middle of the other action. This tense is formed by using was or were with the verb form ending with -ing. For example, “I was studying in NUS before I work at this law firm.” To show an action will be in the progress in the future, future progressive tense will be used. This tense is formed by using will be or shall be with the verb form ending with -ing. For example, “I will be working at the law firm next month.”
How to describe an action that already happened in the past but it is related to present? Present perfect tense is the correct one to be used. For example, “I have worked at this law firm since 2005.” Past perfect tense describes how long an action had taken place before another action. For example, “I had worked as a promoter before I work at a law firm.” While the future perfect tense shows an action will be in progress in the future before another action had taken place. For example, “By the time waiting for result, I will have worked at a law firm.” Briefly, all these above are the correct ways to use the different tenses.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_tense
[2] http://stcloudstate.edu/grammar/tenses.html#simple
[4] http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/sequence.htm
Exercises (http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/exercises/test.htm)
The sentences below contain common verb form mistakes. Find the errors and correct them.
EXAMPLES:
went
A) She would always go on vacation last summer.
1. When I was a kid, I dreamt that I would always be a doctor when I grew up.
2. I would live in Paris with my family when I was a child.
3. I used to going to the park with my pet every day when I lived in Los Angeles.
4. When he asked for help with his project, I told him I was going to help him.
5. She would constantly be tall when she was in elementary school.
Answers:
1. When I was a kid, I dreamt that I would always be a doctor when I grew up.
used to
2. I would live in Paris with my family when I was a child.
go
3. I used to going to the park with my pet every day when I lived in Los Angeles.
would
4. When he asked for help with his project, I told him I was going to help him.
used to
5. She would constantly be tall when she was in elementary school.
3 comments:
I think i am in the same boat as you as i often commit quite a lot of mistakes in tenses...overall i think ur essay is quite comprehensive....Just that maybe u can include more exercises ....the more challengings ones ...SInce such mistakes are oftenly commited during writting essays, maybe by giving an exercise based on a passage would be better, so that we can identify which suitable can be used.
I dont meant to add extra work to you. Its up t o you actually. But with extra effort, i blieve it will benefit every one including yourself!!1:)
Hi, Peijun. Thank you for giving us such a comprehensive explanation of Tense. Tense is a really a big problem for many of us, especially when doing text editing. You’d better divide it into 2or3 paragraphs when writing this article or it will make me dizzy. Furthermore, can you make the answers to the practices more clear? Can you give us some examples which are difficult to distinguish?
Such a grammar teaching passage in details! You write about almost every common tense forms. And what is more imortant, you write everyone in details. This is such a useful article. There are not much things I can say about these uses. Ang the following exercises are also helpful. Thanks.
Post a Comment