Simple Past, Present and Future
Form and use the simple past, present, and future verb tenses consistently in writing
What a learner can do afterwards
- Rewrite 'I walk to school' in past tense ('I walked') and future tense ('I will walk')
- Identify and correct inconsistent tense in 'Yesterday she walks to the shop and bought milk'
- Write a three-sentence paragraph maintaining consistent future tense throughout
1 · Read
You already know how a verb changes for something happening now and something that already happened. Now add one more time: the future. To talk about something that hasn't happened yet, put the word 'will' in front of the verb, like 'will walk'.
Most verbs add '-ed' for the past, like 'walked' and 'played'. But some common verbs change their whole shape: 'run' becomes 'ran', 'eat' becomes 'ate', 'go' becomes 'went', and 'buy' becomes 'bought'. The future is easy with these too: just put 'will' in front, like 'will run'.
Look at this sentence: 'Yesterday she walks to the shop and bought milk.' The word 'walks' is present tense, but the sentence is about yesterday. The fix is 'Yesterday she walked to the shop and bought milk.' Now every verb matches the same time.
Pick one time for your sentence or paragraph and stick with it. Don't jump from past to present to future in the same story unless the time really changes.
Match the verb to the time, walked for yesterday, walk for today, will walk for tomorrow, and keep that same time all the way through.
2 · Watch
Take it off screen
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.