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📘 Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.

Look at the open diary: yesterday I rode my bike, today I ride it, and tomorrow I will ride it. Same action, three time choices—and this course shows you how to pick the one that matches what you mean.

4
lessons
~20 min
to learn
Adults
level
Start the course →

What you’ll learn

  1. The verb is a clockExplain that tense is how a verb tells time, that only present and past live on the verb itself, and that irregular verbs have a third form for use after have.Walk and walked live on the verb. Future borrows will. Ride, rode, ridden is a set you have to know. The verb is the clock in the sentence.
  2. Yesterday, every day, tomorrowChoose simple present for habits, facts, and timetables; simple past for finished events; and will or going to for later actions.I eat cereal is a habit. We visited is over. I will get up late is still ahead. Time words are clues, not bosses.
  3. Still going, or already doneUse progressive for actions in the middle, present perfect for a past that still touches now, and past or future perfect for sequence.Am playing is a photograph still being taken. Has taught is not taught. Had washed sits before another past. Will have finished names a future deadline.
  4. Ask the time a questionChoose a tense by asking when, whether it is finished, whether it still touches now, and whether one time sits in front of another, including state verbs and the has-gone versus went contrast.Four questions pick the clock. States stay simple. Has gone out is not went out. The street is already writing tenses, and English never invented one ending for each job.

Questions this course answers

In the sentence "They will walk," which word is doing the job of marking the future?

English does not have a future ending on the verb itself. Will is the helper that marks later. Walk is the action. They is the subject.

Match each verb form to the job it is doing

Simple present holds habits and facts. Simple past boxes a finished event. Progressive puts you inside the action. Present perfect keeps a past line connected to now.

Put these steps in the order you should use to choose a tense

Zone first, then finished-or-not, then still-connected, then sequence. Skipping ahead to had or will have before you know the zone is how the wrong clock gets picked.

Choose the helper that makes the present perfect

Has taught (or have taught) is the present perfect: started in the past, still true now. Will taught is not a form. Was taught is passive. Had taught would put the teaching before another past event.

Renee had washed the car when George arrived. What does had washed tell you?

Had plus the past participle marks an earlier past. The wash was complete. Then George arrived. Washed when George arrived can mean she started after he got there.

In your own words, why is "He has gone out to play" not the same as "He went out to play"?

England's curriculum hangs the two sentences together on purpose. Went out is a finished past. Has gone out means the leaving still matters in this moment — the room is empty because he is still outside.

Grounded in trusted sources

  • Purdue OWL, Introduction to Verb Tenses, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/grammar/verb_tenses/index.html
  • Purdue OWL, Active Verb Tenses, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/grammar/verb_tenses/active_verb_tenses.html
  • LibreTexts / City College of San Francisco, 12.6 Verbs and Verb Tense, https://human.libretexts.org/Courses/City_College_of_San_Francisco/Writing_Reading_and_College_Success%3A_A_First-Year_Composition_Course_for_All_Learners_(Kashyap_and_Dyquisto)/12%3A_Grammar/12.06%3A_Verbs_and_Verb_Tense
  • Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, Language Grade 5, L.5.1.b Form and use the perfect verb tenses and L.5.1.c Use verb tense to convey various times, sequences, states, and conditions, https://www.thecorestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/L/5/
  • UK Department for Education, National curriculum in England: English programmes of study (Years 3 and 4: present perfect in contrast to the past tense; Years 5 and 6: perfect form of verbs to mark relationships of time and cause), https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study
  • Utah Valley University Writing Center, Verb Tenses, https://www.uvu.edu/writingcenter/handouts/verb-tenses.html

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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