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Course: Grammar > Unit 2
Lesson 2: Verb tensesIntroduction to verb tense
Verb tenses allow verbs to express when an action occurred (past, present, or future). For example, in the verb "talk" in can be expressed as something happening in the past ("talked"), in the present ("talk"), or in the future ("will talk").
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- The past is easy, only need put the ed in end, right?(35 votes)
- Most verbs are known as regular verbs (of course) , and regular verbs always end with -ed. However, there are verbs known as irregular verbs that do not end with -ed. Some examples would include begin (began), make (made), and know (knew). There are many more, those are just a few examples.(70 votes)
- To write phrases in the simple form, do we always just add a "will" and "-ed" to the future and past tenses?(14 votes)
- Jett's answer is excellent, but to take my own shot at answering your question, the answer is "Yes, essentially." To form the simple aspect in the present or past, you don't use any helping verbs. To form the simple aspect in the future, the only helping verb you use is will.(18 votes)
- Also, another question. Find the adjective in the sentence: The Komodo dragon, an endangered lizard, has a poisonous bite.(23 votes)
- the adjectives is endangered and poisonous.(4 votes)
- How is he that good writing with a mouse(11 votes)
- can u give more examples of this(7 votes)
- Absolutely, Dawnesha! I plan to make three more verb tense videos: one for each tense (past, present, and future)!(1 vote)
- I think i use tense, just not in the right way
like my writing is just every where!(5 votes)- This is why if you're aspiring to be a writer, you need to learn the skill of re-writing. I resisted that for years, and it wasn't until people started pointing out my errors that I became embarrassed enough to rewrite (catching my errors in tense and a lot of other things) that I got patient enough. It shows now. My first drafts are often full of mistakes, but my finished work can look rather polished.(6 votes)
- What is wrong with the grammar in this sentence: With fiery breath, we surprised a dragon.? May you guy help me with it?(3 votes)
- Whose breath was fiery. In the sentence as you give it, it seems that the fiery breath belonged to us (we who surprised the dragon). Now, if the fiery breath belonged to the dragon, then the sentence should read, "we surprised a dragon that had fiery breath". Some of the ambiguity is contained in the word, "with".(8 votes)
- I don't understand how to use verb tense(3 votes)
- Ask yourself how verb tense operates in your first language. That might help. But if, as is the case with Chinese, verbs don't have tense, then the chart you'll find here may help.
http://www.idioms4you.com/downloads/verb-tenses/verb-tense-diagrams.html(4 votes)
- what does astonishing mean?(3 votes)
- extremely surprising or impressive(3 votes)
- Why in the future verb you need to add the word will before the verb in the sentence if we use the future tense?(5 votes)
- In the future tense we need to add will or shall in the sentence before the verb.(0 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] Hello grammarians. Today I wanna introduce
the idea of the verb tense, and the way I wanna do that
is to express the following, if you can master grammatical tenses, you will become a time wizard,
a literal, actual time wizard because tense is nothing
more than the ability of verbs to situate themselves in time, specifically in three different times so in the past, the present,
or the future it can happen. When we're talking about a verb, a verb can happen now,
a verb can happen later, and a verb can have
happened in the past, then. That's basically it, and
if you master tenses, you will be able to tell
stories that span all of time, and I think that ability
is kind of astonishing that language can express
that sort of idea. To just give a very simple example, I'll just take the word talk and put it in these three basic tenses. Now, it does get more
complicated than this, sure, but we'll cover that later, so if i take the verb to talk and I put it in the
present, I would just say, "I talk," the most basic iteration, "I talk." In the future, "I will talk," and in the past, "I talked." This is the simple form of every English tense, past, present, future. If you can command all of these,
you will be a time wizard. That's you, you can learn anything. David out.