Tense is a feature of verbs that indicates the time of an action. There are three divisions of time—present, past, and future. Within these divisions, English has six tenses—present, past, future, present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect.
Simple past and present tense are the only forms of English verbs that can express time by themselves. All other forms include helping verbs, also called auxiliaries. These forms combine such helping verbs as has, had, will, or shall with the simple present (see), the present participle (seeing), or the past participle (seen). The following list shows examples of all six tenses:
Present: She sees. Past: She saw. Future: She will see. Present perfect: She has seen. Past perfect: She had seen. Future perfect: She will have seen.
These tenses are written in the active voice, in which the subject performs the action. For a complete list of the tenses for all forms of a verb, see Conjugation .
The progressive forms of a verb indicate that an action is in progress at a particular time—for example, She is seeing the picture for the first time. The emphatic forms provide emphasis, as in She does see. However, this form is more commonly used to ask questions, such as Does she see? It is also used to make negative statements, such as She does not see.
The perfect tenses express time relationships other than simple present, past, and future. The present perfect expresses an action that belongs to the past but touches the present: Until now, we have seen Paris three times. The past perfect expresses an action completed at some past time: In 1945, we had seen Paris only once. The future perfect expresses an action to be completed at some future time: By next year, we will have seen Paris for the fourth time.
