List of all english tenses with structure formula and examples

Hello, how many tenses are in english language ? Can you please write an examples how to use them ?

You can use 16 tenses in English language. There are four groups of tenses: present tense, past tense, future tense and past future tense. Each group contains simple tense, continuous tense, perfect tense and perfect continuous tense.


Present tense

Tense	Structure formula	Example
Present simple tense	Subject + Verb (s/es for the third person)	Jenson reads book in library.
Present continuous tense	Subject + Is/Are/Am + Verb in present participle (+ing)	She is studying in a college.
Present perfect tense	Subject + Have/Has + Verb in past participle	He has made that painting.
Present perfect continuous tense	Subject + Have/Has + Been + Verb in present participle (+ing) + Since/For	Kate has been working here since 2019.

Past tense

Tense	Structure formula	Example
Past simple tense	Subject + Verb in Past form	Gareth did the money transfer.
Past continuous tense	Subject + Was/Were + Verb in present participle (+ing)	She was working yesterday in the morning.
Past perfect tense	Subject + Had + Verb in past participle	He had completed his task.
Past perfect continuous tense	Subject + Had + Been + Verb in present participle (+ing)	I had been playing the football since 11:30.

Future tense

Tense	Structure formula	Example
Future simple tense	Subject + Will/Shall + Verb	He will travel to Germany next week.
Future continuous tense	Subject + Will/Shall + Be + Verb in present participle (+ing)	She will be working on this task.
Future perfect tense	Subject + Will have + Verb in past participle	Linda will have played the guitar.
Future perfect continuous tense	Subject + Will have been + Verb in present participle (+ing)	He will have been exercising for an hour.

Past future tense (known also as Conditional tense)

Tense	Structure formula	Example
Past future simple tense	Subject + Would + Verb	I told him that I would go to shop in the afternoon.
Past future continuous tense	Subject + Should/Would + Be + Verb in present participle (+ing)	He told her that he would be doing invoicing in this week.
Past future perfect tense	Subject + Should/Would + Have + Verb in past participle	Ben said that he would have done his task.
Past future perfect continuous tense	Subject + Would have been + Verb in present participle (+ing)	She said that Brooke should have been doing invoicing for 2 hours by that time.