How many tenses are there in English? |
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| Votes: 1181 |
Comments: 18 |
Added: August 2003 |
Comments:
| willbut - 8th October 2003 23:10
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| Just goes to show there is no consensus on this.
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| willbut - 7th December 2003 14:05
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I presume the votes for two would say there's a present and a past tense.
Those who chose three, believe there is a past, a present and a future tense.
The ten or more would include every progressive and perfect progressive form as a separate tense.
However, I'm not sure about those who voted for 6. Which tenses are they talking about?
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| nasir - 23rd February 2005 06:21
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| where are two main tenses in english .present and past future is a tense but it is emiginative we do not know will an actin happens or not we are not sure about that and every one of them has four forms ?
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| MrTrilby - 31st January 2006 21:08
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| Future is just the present with modifiers.
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| Asim - 29th July 2006 11:27
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| The people who r saying that thr is no concept of future tense, its just an imaginary tense are absolutely wrong from my point of view because if v talk about present progressive so it also gives us the sense of future sometimes.....so according to this comment present progressive is also not a tense.....
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| ali sarýca - 14th October 2006 17:31
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| everything
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| Stryfe - 9th February 2007 22:01
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People voting six are likely familiar with Latin or another Romance language with six tenses:
Present (I do)
Imperfect past (I was doing)
Future (I will do)
Perfect past (I did)
Pluperfect (I had done)
Future perfect (I will have done)
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| Jerry - 23rd April 2007 12:34
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| Why is the imperfect past a tense and the other forms not? If that's a tense then shouldn't all the other progressive/imperfect forms be tenses?
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| muhammad shoaib - 30th May 2007 05:24
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| more than 10
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| EnglishTeacher - 19th August 2007 12:27
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| There are fourteen tenses used in English, most of which have an active and passive application.
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| Scooby - 8th September 2007 22:58
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There are 16 tenses in english. I'll list them ...
1. Present Simple - I play
2. Present Continuous - I am playing
3. Present Perfect - I have played
4. Present Perfect Continuous - I have been playing
5. Past Simple - I played
6. Past Continuous - I was playing
7. Past Perfect - I had played
8. Past Perfect Continuous - I had been playing
9. Future Simple - I will play (including "be going to + infinitive" form) I am goint to play
10. Future Continuous - I will be playing
11. Future Perfect - I will have played
12. Future Perfect Continuous - I will have been playing
13. Future Simple in the past - I would play (including the "was/were going to + infinitive" form)
14. Future Continuous in the past - I would be bathing
15. Future Perfect in the past - I would have played
16. Future Perfect Continuous in the past - I would have been playing
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| Doo - 30th October 2007 14:30
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Scooby,
Your list only shows two. The future is not a tense, and the present and past are the two, with different aspects.
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| Sean - 25th November 2007 19:27
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there are four:
past (it was, it had been)
present (it is, they are)
conditional (it could be, it could...)
future (it will...)
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| wafaa - 19th March 2008 12:05
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| I agree with scooby that there are 16 tenses in English.... the future is a tense indeed....In Arabic for example the future is a tense....the same in English in terms of the future tense....
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| Lawrence - 21st March 2008 09:28
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| The comparison to Arabic is irrelevant. Different languages do things differently, so the existence of the future tense in Arabic doesn't prove anything about English.
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| 12 - 9th April 2008 12:23
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| IF YOU GIVE US THE COMPLETE IN FORMATION
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| agus hery - 25th July 2008 11:38
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| i think there are 16 tenses in english language. they are simple present,present continous,present perfect,present perfect continous,simple past,past continous,past perfect,past perfect continous,simple future,future continous,future perfect continous,simple past future,past future continous,past future perfect,and past future perfect continous.
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| Estella Eng - 26th September 2008 13:48
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| Wow! I did not noe tat there were so many tenses! Thank you!
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