The English language has 12 verb tenses (some grammarians say)
Do you need to learn and use all 12 tenses to be able to communicate effectively?
IMHO... NO!
But some of the tenses are difficult to explain, understand and use.
At least two tenses can be interchanged without any obvious consequences to the final result.
So, I want to know what you think.
Which tense is the most difficult to understand, learn, use or explain?
Feel free to explain your answer.
After all, this is the discussion section, so use your discussion skills.
This question is open to all English learners, tutors and teachers.
Example of the 12 Verb Tenses
VERB TENSE SENTENCE EXAMPLE
Present Simple I write
Present Continuous I am writing
Present Perfect I have written
Present Perfect Continuous I have been writing
Past Simple I wrote
Past Continuous I was writing
Past Perfect I had written
Past Perfect Continuous I had been writing
Future Simple I will write
Future Continuous I will be writing
Future Perfect I will have written
Future Perfect Continuous I will have been writing
As a native speaker, I'm mostly unaware of what verb tenses I use. It seems to me that in school, we did not learn the names for any of the tenses that are built with auxiliary words. They never felt to me like "real" tenses. We did at times do a sort of conjugation in which we recited "swim, swam, swimming, swum" or something like that.
Obviously, the future perfect continuous is a rare beast. I was trying to think if I had ever seen it in the wild, but I think I have: Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken." No, I was wrong, it's just future continuous. Oh, good heavens, I've forgotten what the difference is between shall and will. I'm done for.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
What tense is being used in the previous line?
I doubted if I should ever come back.
Is that the historical future? A participial contrapositive? A pluperfect conditional dysfunctional?
It's important to know that all my comments regarding the usage of the tenses are simply my opinions based primarily on my native experiences and usages.
I was interested to know the frequency of usage of the 12 tenses.
The following is an excerpt from a masters thesis.
*********
THE FREQUENCY OF USAGE OF THE 12 VERB TENSES
The percentage of the twelve verb tenses are organized according to the most used by native speakers in academic written assignments.
The Table below provides the Percentages of the Twelve Verb Tenses elicited from over 100,000-Word Corpus.
1. Present Simple 49.99%
2. Past Simple 28.50%
3. Present Perfect 4.65%
4. Future Simple 2.32%
5. Present Progressive 2.31%
6. Past Perfect 0.73%
7. Past Progressive 0.71%
8. Present Perfect Progressive 0.21%
9. Future Progressive 0.02%
10. Future Perfect 0.01%
11. Past Perfect Progressive 0.009%
12. Future Perfect Progressive 0.009%
Source:
The Frequency of The Twelve Verb Tenses in Academic Papers Written by Native Speakers
2016
Uthman Alzuhairy
University of Central Florida
I found an example in the wild! Darwin, On the Origin of Species:
For in the larger country there will have existed more individuals, and more diversified forms, and the competition will have been severer, and thus the standard of perfection will have been rendered higher.
Wait, is "will have been rendered" really the same tense as "will have been rendering?"
For many older natives like me, we were not taught tenses in the same manner that exam boards insist they are taught today.
Tenses were not broken down into many subdivisions until going onto much higher education, or choosing to study English, or to study teaching English.
The tenses were taught by example so that students learned/learnt them automatically, without having to overthink and get confused whilst over thinking what they were saying or which tense they were using..
Gap filling for me anyway was rare. The teaching was more about the teacher say something like.
You home work tonight is to write three sentences.
1. describes you beginning something in the past and it/that ends today.
2. describes somebody you meet yesterday still continuing to finish what they were doing when you meet them yesterday.
3. you and a friend doing something today that will end today.
The tenses were not split into separate future simple present etc.
This was not done until you were at an advanced level or had chosen to study English after school, also they used to call the tenses by different easier to understand names, after the simple very basic "past" 'present" and "future"'; the subdivisions were not called as they are today. (I cannot remember what they were called).
Teaching was more about picking and understanding the correct conjugations; and about using a dictionary effectively to pick the correct words. Also vocabulary building to be able to select alternative words. Using a thesaurus knowing how to use a thesaurus. Knowing the etymology of words to get a sense of how better to use words. Also before wikipedia and the internet English students always had to refer to a minimum of two or three independent sources and explain why they choose a particular reference source as the answer they had given. It is true to say that things were totally different then.
Great discussion !
For me , I usually get confused between Present Perfect Continues & Past Perfect Continues .
There is something else really frustrating about grammar in English for me as a learner ; I make simple mistakes while writing or speaking , I would not make them if I just checked what I am writing . As for speaking I usually know while speaking that I am making mistakes but I could not correct them at the same time while speaking . I mean , it is not natural for me yet to express my thoughts in English . I hope that after several months of studying carefully with great perseverance I will break through & be fluent !
