Verb tenses: simple and progressive

Some grammarians believe that tense must always be shown by the actual form of the verb, and in many languages present, past and future are indicated by changes in the verb forms. On this reckoning, English really has just two tenses, the present and the past, since these are the only two cases where the form of the basic verb varies: love, write (present); loved, wrote (past).

However, it is usual (and convenient) to refer to all combinations of be + present participle and have + past participle as tenses. The same goes for will + bare infinitive [> 16.3] to refer to the future (It will be fine tomorrow). But we must remember that tense in English is often only loosely related to time.

Tenses have two forms, simple and progressive (sometimes called 'continuous'). The progressive contains be + present participle:

Simple forms and progressive combinations can also occur with:
conditionals [> Chapter 14]: / would work I would be working

modals [> Chapter 11]: / may work I may be working

Both simple and progressive forms usually give a general idea of when an action takes place. But the progressive forms also tell us that

9 Verbs, verb tenses, imperatives

an activity is (or was, or will be, etc.) in progress, or thought of as

being in progress.

This activity may be in progress at the moment of speaking:

What are you doing? I'm making a cake or not in progress at the moment of speaking:

I'm learning to type (i.e. but not at the moment of speaking) Or the activity may be temporary or changeable:

Fred was wearing a blue shirt yesterday Or the activity may be uncompleted:

Vera has been trying to learn Chinese for years Our decision about which tense to use depends on the context and the impression we wish to convey.