How many times in English?
"How many times in English?""- this question is usually asked by those who are just starting to learn the language. And at best they get the answer: "Oh, a lot! The names are complicated and confusing! ". Well, at worst they start to frighten, sometimes even completely discouraging to receive or improve already acquired knowledge.
From my point of view, everything is not so difficult. Rather, if you study theory, the theme "English verb tenses", like any other, always turns into a set of incomprehensible terms and titles. Such a new and, I agree, far from being the simplest and easily accessible for understanding, the material should be systematized and in small portions, and only in this case the student is guaranteed to succeed.
In principle, it seems to me that the question is how many times in the English language is not fundamental. The essence is not in quantity, but in understanding information and applying it in practice.
So, English is the tense of verbs. A brief description of.
Just like in our native Russian, all actions expressed by the English verb can occur in the past, present, or future.
In addition, the English language is divided into four, unusual for a Russian-speaking person, the group:
• Simple / Indefinite group (Uncertain / Simple). Describes an action as a fact that occurs constantly, regularly, or repeated from time to time.
• The Continuous group. Characterizes what is happening in terms of its duration or extent. It is formed with the help of the verb to be and adding the ending -ing to the main verb (predicate);
• Perfect group. They testify that the action has already been completed at a certain point in time. Method of education: to have (has), performing the role of an auxiliary verb, + the form of the past participle;
• Perfect-Continuous group. Even from the name it is not at all difficult to guess that it determines the characteristic features of the times of both a perfect and a long group: it describes an action that lasted for a certain period of time and ended up to a certain point in time. It uses 2 auxiliary verbs - to have (has) and been, and the main verb (predicate) gets the ending -ing.
And now be careful - in order tocorrectly count how many times in the English language, you need to remember that each of the above groups, can be expressed both in the present, and in the past and future times.
Those. as a result we have twelve times.
1. The Simple group:
• Present. simple time, English. Present Simple Tense;
I usually wake up at 10. - I usually wake up at 10 o'clock.
• Passed. simple time, English. Past Simple Tense;
Yesterday I woke up at 10. - Yesterday I woke up at 10 o'clock.
• Future. simple time, English. Future Simple Tense.
I'll wake up at 10 tomorrow - Tomorrow I'll wake up at 10 o'clock.
2. Continuous group:
• Present. a long time, English. Present Continuous Tense;
Now I "m working." - At the moment I'm working.
• Passed. a long time, English. Past Continuous Tense;
Yesterday I was working from 9 till 11. - Yesterday I worked from 9 to 11.
• Future. a long time, English. Future Continuous Tense.
"Tomorrow at this very minute I'll be working." - Tomorrow at this time I will work.
3. The Perfect Group
• Present. perfect time, English. Present Perfect Tense;
I finished working by 10 o'clock.
• Passed. perfect time, English. Past Perfect Tense;
Yesterday I had finished work by 10. - Yesterday I finished the work by 10 o'clock.
• Future. perfect time, English. Future Perfect Tense.
Tomorrow I have finish work by 10. - Tomorrow I will finish the work by 10 o'clock.
4. Perfect-Continuous group:
• Present. accomplished-long time, English. Present Perfect-Continuous;
I've been staying in NY for 3 years already. "" I've been living in New York for three years.
• Passed. accomplished-long time, English. Past Perfect-Continuous;
By 2011 I "d been living NY for 3 years already." - In 2011, I lived in New York for three years.
• Future. accomplished-long time, English. Future Perfect-Continuous.
By 2013 I have been staying in NY for five years. "" In 2013 I will be living in New York for 5 years.
We answered the question how many times inEnglish language. There are twelve of them, three times in each of the four groups. And, as you could see for yourself, although the system of times in this foreign language is completely different from the one we used to use in our native language, we can still draw some parallels.
And I almost forgot about one very important nuance: the indisputable dignity of the English language is strict order, logicality and full compliance with the laws of grammar.
