Here Comes the Tenses! - 1 introduction

The most difficult part of English grammar is tenses (only verb has tenses). The second would probably be prepositions.

There is a total of 12 tenses in English.

Each simple form - past, present and future - has continuous, perfect and perfect continuous forms. Each tense represents when and how long the verb is referring to. It is, therefore, easier to understand if students have a better understanding of time (space/dimension). The arrow is the most common way of explaining this.

The good news is most of the time, we use only 5-6 of them. I.E. All simple forms (past, present, future) and the 2 continuous forms (past continuous, present continuous) and maybe past perfect (which can be avoided).