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Verb tenses

Present tenses

Simple present tense

Present progressive tense

Present perfect tense

Present perfect progressive tense

Past tenses

Simple past tense

Past progressive tense

Past perfect tense

Past perfect progressive tense

Future tenses

Simple future tense

Future progressive tense

Future perfect tense

Future perfect progressive tense

Past perfect tense

Use this tense when you want to describe something that happened in the past and was done and finished with also in the past. Often, this tense is used when we want to emphasise that this action occurred in the past before another action occurred in the past:

I had gone to the gym before I ran.

The ‘had gone’ is in the past perfect tense, telling us that this event happened in the past and was completed or finished in the past. The verb ‘ran’ is in the simple past tense. Using the past perfect tense to describe my trip to the gym allows us to emphasise to the reader that the run came after the gym trip, even though both events were in the past.

Click here to move on to the next topic: Past perfect progressive tense