TENSE EXAMPLE USE

PRESENT SIMPLE You just never listen, do you? Regular/habitual event, fact
PRESENT CONTINUOUS Happening now (temporary)
She's standing her ground.
PAST SIMPLE Neil stepped down. Completed past event
PAST CONTINUOUS I was just looking at it. 'Background' past event
FUTURE SIMPLE It’ll be alright on the night. Prediction of completed event

FUTURE CONTINUOUS Prediction of 'simultaneous' event

Bill will be seeing his secretary Monday.
/happening as a matter of course
"GOING TO' FUTURE You’re not going to watch Star Wars again, are
Plan
you?
PRESENT PERFECT SIMPLE That's torn it. Recent event or life experience
PRESENT PERFECT CONT. How long have you been telling that joke? Continuous up to now
PAST PERFECT SIMPLE Completed event before main
The plant had grown afoot in our absence.
Past reference

PAST PERFECT CONT. We’d been trying to get it started. Continuous before main past reference

FUTURE PERFECT SIMPLE They’ll have destroyed half the rainforests by Predicted to have happened by a future
2020. time
FUTURE PERFECT CONT. They‘ll have been talking for ten hours come Continuous action up to a future time
midnight. (duration stated)
TENSE (etc.) ACTIVE PASSIVE
Present Simple She takes photos. Photos are/ taken by her.
Present Continuous She is taking photos. Photos are/ being- taken/ by her.
Past Simple She took a photo. A photo- was taken by her.
Past Continuous She was taking a photo. A photo-was being-taken by her.
Future Simple She '11 take a photo. A photo will/be/taken by her.
Future With Going To She's going to take a photo. A photo-is going-to-be-taken by her.
(Future Continuous) She '11 be taking photos. Photos will be/ being- taken by her. [R]

Present Perfect Simple She has taken a decision. A decision has been taken by her.

(Present Perfect Cont.) She has been taking photos. Photos have been/ being- taken by her. [R]
Past Perfect Simple She had taken photos before then. Photos had/ been taken by her before/ then.
She will have mastered relative clauses by next week Relative clause will have been mastered by her by next
Future Perfect Simple
week
Modal Someone might buy it. It might be bought.
Modal Perfect Someone could have killed us. We could have been killed.
Someone needs to clean my desk. My desk needs to be cleaned. (Or My desk needs cleaning.
Infinitive (Or Gerund)
- only with need, deserve, require, want)
Perfect Infinitive Better to have loved. Better to have been loved.
Gerund (Of Be) He doesn’t like it when someone tells him what to do. He doesn’t like being told what to do.
The [R] signifies that the future continuous and the continuous perfects are very rarely used in the passive.