Many of those who study English know that it contains two groups of tenses.
Three main ones:
The times presented, depending on the situation, add up with secondary times:
- Simple
- Progressive
- Perfect
- Perfect progressive.
The result of the addition of these two groups is the presence of 12 times in English.
The listed tenses are usually arranged in a table that clearly shows what form the verb takes when it is in a particular time period.
Also in the table you can observe the first indications of how to determine the time in English.
It is interesting!
To better remember complex material, you need to study it effortlessly, for this, in addition to the scientific table of times, we will show you a comic book, which for some will be easier to learn.
Rules for determining the times
Having examined how the verb forms are called correctly, we will answer the question of how to determine the time in English. For an answer, consider step-by-step instructions.
- The first step is to translate the sentence we are working on to make it easier to understand what information is being given to us.
- The second step is to determine the time marker. In every time in the language we are considering, there is a marker - a word that can easily determine the time. Similar words indicate a specific point in time or relative. For example, in Present Simple, similar markers are words such as: every day, often, constantly. These markers, as can be seen from the example, indicate regular time, but not only this sign indicates this type of time. Another marker is the usual name for the action: I like watermelon . In this case, it is indicated inaccurately when you like it, and you just talk about your action without specifying the time period.
This example shows that such markers provide ease in recognizing and correctly determining the time in a sentence. Based on this simple example, we want to show that each time has its markers - words by which you can easily understand what time is ahead of you. The main thing is to remember the markers.
- The third step is to remember what time the marker refers to.
- The fourth step is to determine the time.
Having considered how to correctly determine the time in English, we pay attention to the following moment: how to determine the tense of the verb.
Rules for determining the verb tense
To solve this problem, as in the previous case, we will use step-by-step instructions.
- The first step is to emphasize the verbs that we see in the sentence.
- The second step is to recall: is it a correct verb or not, because, according to reference books in English, a verb has three properties by which it is easy to determine:
- Time is one of the main ones: past, future or present.
- The type of time is a subtime determined by a marker.
- The pledge is passive (an action is performed on the speaker) or active (an action is performed on the speaker).
If the verb is correct, you can refer to the dictionary or vocabulary, otherwise, to the table of irregular verbs or again to the verbs of the same type you have learned.
- The third step is to find the compound, which relates directly to time, next to the main verb.
For example, for the group Past - was, did ...; a verb ending in -ed.
For Present: do, does ...; a verb ending in -s.
Such examples most clearly show that for any verb it is easy to determine the time, and answer the constantly arising question for those who are just beginning to understand how to determine the tense of the verb in English.
Summarize
So, summing up, we want to note that we examined the main and difficultly perceived issues when studying English, focusing on the first: how to determine the time in English, as it is the key to a correct and quick study. In addition to answering the main question, we also described how easy it is to learn and understand each time, as well as to recognize it in a sentence.
Finally, I want to give advice: devote the maximum amount of time and attention to the topic "How to determine the time of a sentence in English." The main thing here is practice and its regularity. Then you can easily answer the question of how to determine the time in English. Good luck.