Learners of English often have problems when deciding which tense to use. For example, what is the difference between:
David has arrived with the shopping.
and
David is arriving with the shopping. ?
Both of these are “present” tenses in that they describe actions that are happening now, rather than in the past or the future, but the difference is that the former is saying that the action has been completed, whereas the latter implies that it is still happening. If you like, the former is the present looking to the past but the latter is the present looking to the future.
To be technical, the former is called the present perfect – “perfect” here meaning that the action is complete. You use “have” or “has” and the past participle of the verb, such as “have known”, “has come”, etc.
The latter is known as the continuous or progressive form of the present tense, and is formed from a part of the verb “to be” and the “-ing” (present participle) form of the verb that describes the action, as in “am going”, “was asking”, etc.
Why not practice the use of these tenses by writing pairs of sentences, one describing an action that has just ended and the other an action that is still going on, based on these examples:
Susan (bake) a cake
John (write) a letter to the Council
It would not surprise me if the boys (play) football today
Do you have a particular problem that you would like me to discuss? You can write a comment, or go to my website at www.welfordwrites.co.uk
Tags: continuous, present perfect, progressive, tenses
