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How many tenses in English?

General English Grammar & Vocabulary,... » ESL General English Grammar Questions

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Anonymous, 1 yr 280 days ago

Paco is right, there are only two tenses in English, the 13 combinations that you suggested are not tenses, but tense+aspect(s).

Anonymous, 1 yr 111 days ago
I believe 3 tenses.

There is only


1. Past

2. Present

3. Future



If you add perfect, progressive etc, it gets too complicated.
Related discussions
Anonymous, 1 yr 25 days ago
There are only TWO basic tenses in the English language, present and past, we do not have a future tense so we use modals.

SR
Anonymous, 236 days ago
 There are 12 active tenses. Imperatives and the use of going to are not tenses they are uses of the verbs.

There are a similar number of passive tenses where applicable. So all in all there should be 24 tenses 12 active and 12 passive. The rest is all a smoke screen.

bettina_tragen  +  888956 Sun, 06 Sep 09 05:44 AM
I'm having to answer an exam question on this and the truth is very simple - there are 2 tenses in English - the past and the present - this subject has been covered many times on the site and many people are "muddying the waters" or seem to be confused re. definition (in linguistic terms) of the word Tense as it relates to verb usage. 
bettina_tragen
Joined on Sun, Sep 6 2009
New Member 04
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bettina_tragen  +  888971 Sun, 06 Sep 09 05:52 AM
There is no future tense in English because we can not know the future. We can only predict or expect it - based on our knowledge/understanding of the world and events/actions in a time not yet experienced - we express this future in aspects,voices and moods. 
bettina_tragen
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CalifJim  +  889858 Sun, 06 Sep 09 08:25 PM
bettina_tragen
“There is no future tense in English because we can not know the future.”
The Romans, on the other hand, were considerably more clairvoyant, because Latin has a future tense.


CJ
CalifJim
Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004
California
Veteran Member 22,428
"There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche
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