All 12 Verb Tenses in English – Past, Present and Future Verb Conjugation

verb tenses
From the past, present and future, how well do you know your verb tenses? For teachers, this article will help you brush up your memory. Otherwise, if you're a student, here are tons of examples to help you master verb conjugation.
Published by: All ESL | Last Updated: January 1, 2020

All 12 Verb Tenses in English – Past, Present and Future Verbs

Do you want to improve your English verb tense skills?

A good place to start is this list of all 12 verb tenses where we give the verb conjugation for the verb “to travel”.

From past, present and future, here are practical examples with different subjects.

Take a look at these 12 types of verb conjugation:

The 12 Verb Tenses in English

Before we begin, here’s a list of the 12 verb tenses in English:

  • Present Simple
  • Present Continuous/Progressive
  • Present Perfect
  • Present Perfect Continuous/Progressive
  • Past Simple
  • Past Continuous/Progressive
  • Past Perfect
  • Past Perfect Continuous/Progressive
  • Future Simple
  • Future Perfect
  • Future Continuous/Progressive
  • Future Perfect Continuous/Progressive

Present Simple Verb Tense

When you use present simple, you are using a routine. It’s something that you always do every day, month or year. Or it’s something that you never do.

PRESENT VERB TENSE EXAMPLES:
  • I, You, We, They: travel every day.
  • He, She, It: travels every day.

Present Continuous/Progressive Verb Tense

When you use present continuous, you are referring to what is happening right now. Also, it can be an action that is not yet complete.

PRESENT CONTINUOUS/PROGRESSIVE EXAMPLES:
  • I: am traveling right now.
  • You, We, They: are traveling right now.
  • He, She, It: is traveling right now.

Present Perfect Verb Tense

Although it’s easy to confuse this verb tense with present simple, the main difference is that the action is complete for present perfect. In other words, you are looking at the result right now without any words referring to time.

PRESENT PERFECT EXAMPLES:
  • I, You, We, They: have traveled to France.
  • He, She, It: has traveled to France.

Present Perfect Continuous/Progressive Verb Tense

In this verb tense, an action starts in the past but it’s still continuing now. You have been performing the action and still are performing the action in the present.

PRESENT PERFECT CONTINUOUS/PROGRESSIVE EXAMPLES:
  • I, You, We, They: have been traveling for a day.
  • He, She, It: has been traveling for a day.

Past Simple Verb Tense

For past simple, it includes a finished action and time.

PAST SIMPLE EXAMPLES:
  • I, You, We, They, He, She, It: traveled to France yesterday.

Past Continuous/Progressive Verb Tense

When you use past continuous, you are often using two actions. However, one action is not finished in the past, and another is complete interrupting the other action.

PAST CONTINUOUS/PROGRESSIVE EXAMPLES:
  • I, He, She, It: was traveling by bus when the deer crossed the road.
  • You, We, They: were traveling when the deer crossed the road.

Past Perfect Verb Tense

This verb tense uses two actions at two different times. Before the second action occurs, the first action is complete.

PAST PERFECT EXAMPLES:
  • I, You, We, They, He, She, It: had traveled by car when the bus arrived.

Past Perfect Continuous/Progressive Verb Tense

For colloquial English, we don’t use past perfect continuous very often. But in text books, it’s a bit more common. This very tense has a complete action that happened before a second action. But in this case, you can describe how long.

PAST PERFECT CONTINUOUS/PROGRESSIVE EXAMPLES:
  • I, You, We, They, He, She, It: had been traveling for one hour when the car broke down.

Future Simple Verb Tense

This verb tense is about planning things to do in the future. For example, what will you do tomorrow or next week?

Instead of using “will”, you can use “going to” for future tense. But this lesson uses “will” for the future tense.

FUTURE SIMPLE EXAMPLES:
  • I, You, We, They, He, She, It: will travel to France tomorrow.

Future Continuous/Progressive Verb Tense

The action is not complete, when another action happens in the future. This is similar to past continuous, but it refers to the future.

FUTURE CONTINUOUS/PROGRESSIVE EXAMPLES:
  • I, You, We, They, He, She, It: will be traveling when you arrive.

Future Perfect Verb Tense

An action will be completed in the future before another is completed.

FUTURE PERFECT EXAMPLES:
  • I, You, We, They, He, She, It: will have traveled to France by the time you arrive.

Future Perfect Continuous/Progressive Verb Tense

An action will be continuing in the future when it is interrupted by another action. In this future verb tense, it often includes an indication of how long the action has been happening.

FUTURE PERFECT CONTINUOUS/PROGRESSIVE EXAMPLES:
  • I, You, We, They, He, She, It: will have been traveling for one hour when you arrive.

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20 Comments

  2. Thanks I got it! Do you know in another website I couldn’t find every tense sometimes there are only tense with no examples. But this one is good.

    Reply

  3. Thank you so much for this! It’s my first year teaching ESL grammar, and while I have objectives, I don’t have any materials. It is extremely helpful to have all of the tenses together in one place, with explanations and examples.

    Reply

  5. It is extremely helpful to have all of the tenses together in one place. With expansion and examples.
    I don’t have any materials. Now I have no objections.
    Thank you so much for this

    Reply

  6. You missed some passive tenses off:

    Will Future Progressive
    “Your hammer will be being mended…”

    Future Perfect Progressive
    “I will have been being driven”

    Conditional Perfect Progressive:
    “I would have been being driven mad by this infrequently used grammatical construction”

    I have used these in everyday conversations and they roll of the tongue quite naturally.

    Reply

  7. Thank you very much, if I had had this explaining 40 years ago… It would have helped me so much!

    Great to get those explanations now and be able to pass them on… 😉

    Reply

  8. Even though I lived in UK nearly thirty years I have never gone to school to learn English so now decided to improve my English through internet. So, it’s very helpful and easy to learn. Thank you for your support.

    Reply

  9. I’m an ESL teacher and admittedly, identifying grammar/ structure is not my strong point. Can you please help me understand the structure/form/ tense of this sentence: What questions are you usually asked at an airport immigration counter?..Please help.Thank you.

    Reply

    • Present perfect continuous tense.
      It is a different version of the statement “I am usually asked this question at the airport counter.” Only that it is in question form! Think about it.

      Reply

  11. Your explanations are wonderful and very clear. However, I always thought that there ware 13 tenses. Where does “be going to tense” fit in? I am so confused now.

    Reply

  15. Excellent explanation! I was very confused until I read this, makes much more sense now and definitely simplified it for me!
    Thank you.

    Reply

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