VOA · Everyday Grammar
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Everyday Grammar digs into one grammar topic per episode — verb tenses, prepositions, sentence patterns — with plenty of spoken examples. Because you are listening to language about language, it doubles as grammar review while you train your ears.
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01For VOA Learning English, this is Everyday Grammar.
02Today, we are going to give you a basic overview of the verb tense system in English.
03Verb tenses tell us how an action relates to the flow of time.
04There are three main verb tenses in English, present, past, and future.
05The present, past, and future tenses are divided into four aspects.
06The simple, progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive.
07There are twelve major verb tenses that English learners should know.
08English has only two ways of forming a tense from the verb alone, the past and the present.
09For example, we drove and we drive.
10To form other verb tenses, you have to add a form of have, be, or will in front of the verb.
11These are called helping or auxiliary verbs.
12Verb tenses can be difficult to learn in a foreign language.
13Different cultures think different ways about time.
14Chinese, for example, has no grammatical verb tenses.
15Other languages, like Indonesian, express time only through adverbs.
16There are no changes to the verb form.
17English verb tenses give many details about time and action, such as, It is difficult to think about time distinctions that do not exist in your own language.
18So, it can take many years for English learners to master verb tenses.
19Let's get started.
20We are going to give examples of all twelve verb tenses using the verb drive.
21We'll start with the simple tenses.
22These are probably the first tenses you learned in English.
23Simple tenses usually refer to a single action.
24In general, simple tenses express facts and situations that existed in the past, exist in the present, or will exist in the future.
25Simple present.
26Simple present.
27I drive home every day.
28Simple past.
29I drove home yesterday.
30Simple future.
31I will drive home later.
32Let's go on to the progressive tenses.
33We use progressive tenses to talk about unfinished events.
34Progressive tenses are also called continuous tenses.
35Past progressive.
36I was driving when you called.
37Present progressive.
38I am driving now.
39Future progressive.
40I will be driving when you call.
41Now let's look at the perfect tenses.
42Perfect tenses cause the most confusion.
43To put it simply, they express the idea that one event happens before another event.
44There are many tricky exceptions with the perfect tenses, which we will discuss in a future episode.
45The adverbs never, yet, and already are common in perfect tenses.
46Present perfect.
47I have driven that road.
48Past perfect.
49I had already driven that road in the past.
50Future perfect.
51I will have driven 200 miles by tomorrow.
52Finally, let's look at the perfect progressive tenses.
53Generally, perfect progressive tenses express duration or how long.
54Perfect progressive tenses usually include the adverbs for or since.
55Present perfect progressive.
56Past perfect progressive.
57Past perfect progressive.
58Past perfect progressive.
59Past perfect progressive.
60Past perfect progressive.
61Past perfect progressive.
62Past perfect progressive.
63Past perfect progressive.
64Past perfect progressive.
65Past perfect progressive.
66Past perfect progressive.
67Past perfect progressive.
68Past perfect progressive.
69Past perfect progressive progressive.
70Past perfect.
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// transcribed with Whisper AI — reading it is easy; catching it by ear is the skill
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