Help Me

[SPACEDOUT66]

What tenses i.e present perfect, past perfect etc are the following sentences

My name's Mark.

Do people go to heaven when they die?

I would think the first sentence is in the present perfect tense, while the second sentence is in the future simple tense.

Am I correct, if not why not

[rewboss]

OK, here's a very brief breakdown of the English tense system:

We start off with the present simple and the past simple. These are called "simple" tenses because in the normal form for statements, they don't use any auxiliary verbs: "you play" (present); "you played" (past). To make questions or negatives, you do need an auxiliary verb, and it's always "do": "you don't play"; "did you play?"

If you use the auxiliary verb "to be" and the present participle of the main verb, you get the continuous (a.k.a. progressive) tenses: "you are playing" (present continuous); "you were playing" (past continuous).

If you use the auxiliary verb "to have" and the past participle of the main verb, you get the perfect tenses: "you have played" (present perfect); "you had played" (past perfect).

If you use the auxiliary verb "to have", plus the past participle of "to be" (which is "been") and the present participle of the main verb, you get the perfect continuous (or perfect progressive) tense: "you have been playing" (present perfect continuous); "you had been playing" (past perfect continuous).

Strictly speaking, English does not actually have a future tense (unlike, for example, French). Instead, we use various present tenses to express future ideas: "The train leaves at 10.30 tomorrow" (present simple); "I'll get some eggs" (present simple of the modal verb "will"); "We're having a meeting next week" (present continuous); "I'm going to paint that door next week" (present continuous of "go" plus an infinitive).

Now, which of these patterns fit those of your sentences?

[Mariner]

My name's Mark.

Do people go to heaven when they die?

They are both in Simpe Present. What perhaps confuses you regarding the second one, is the fact that "go" refers to a "generalized argument", similar as in e.g. Cats are graceful, while "die"is placed in a subordinate clause.

When we form these kinds of sentences, we always use Present Tense

Call me when you get back
NOT
*Call me when you will get back