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Tenses a la Shmoop.

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So youre sitting in Spanish class and the teacher calls on you to translate the

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phrase if I had known you were going to attend I would have saved you

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a seat and you both know that you would rather get into spandex and fight

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lucha libre in front of the whole class than figure out how to say that.

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had knownwere going to...

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would have saved You dont have to think twice about saying a big fat phrase

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in English a language with 12-16 tenses depending on who you ask but you probably

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dont even know what to call the tenses you use in English every day.

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So uh step away from the spandex for a secondand lets talk tenses.

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Present perfect simple past perfect progressive conditional perfect the way we talk about tenses in

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English just sounds like word diarrhea.

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But if we break it down its all just a matter of time when

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somethings happening and for how long.

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First youve got your basic tenses past present future and conditional.

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You know this stuff.

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It either already happened or its happening or it will happen and if its conditional

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it depends on something else happening.

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The conditional is usually the then part of an if-then statement and it uses would

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could or should.

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Like when your mom says if you had finished your Spanish homework I would have

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taken you to see the One Direction movie.

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Anyway if we stopped there the English language would have just four tenses.

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Four boring tenses.

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Things would have to happen one after the other.

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You could never be doing one thing while your friend did something else.

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Thats why weve got ways to describe those tenses simple progressive and perfect.

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All these words do is make the time of the tense even more specific.

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Simple means that the emphasis is on the verb being executed.

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That is you do something and then its finished.

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Progressive --sometimes called continuous-- means that the emphasis is on duration being in the process

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of doing something.

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A progressive verb is making progress you could say.

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Perfect means that the action has already happened but is significant in the present tense.

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It uses the helper verb to have.

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This one will make more sense in a second.

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And now its just a mix-and-match game four basic tenses three descriptors.

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To make sure weve got this down lets try it out bring out the presents

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not that kind of present.

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Simple present I speak. Simple.

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The focus is on the action.

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You speak and then youre done speaking.

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Present Progressive I am speaking.

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Its progressive because it emphasizes the process of the action.

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Youre in the middle of speaking.

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Present perfect simple I have spoken.

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This ones perfect because it uses have as a helper.

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Plus its already happened hes done speaking but its still important for the present.

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Really anybody who says I have spoken thinks theyre important for the present and its

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simple because its about the execution of the verb not the process.

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Present perfect progressive I have been speaking.

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Again its perfect because of the have and progressive because the focus is on the

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process of speaking.

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So weve got these seven basic terms past present future conditional simple progressive perfect

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and with all the tenses all youve gotta do is take em apart term-by-term and

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see what theyre made of.

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Its better than losing to a guy in hot pink spandex ... NOTE end of file

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