And I'm going to show you a special way to understand them so that you can learn them more easily.

So, this video is part of the www.engvid.com series on English verb tenses.

But what are tenses anyway?

Tenses are just the way we refer to time in a language.

We could be talking about the past or the present or the future.

In English, there are twelve different tenses, and they can be explained in many different ways, but I'm going to show you a simple way that I think will make it much easier for you to learn, understand, and start using them.

So, let's have a look.

So, on the board, I've written the twelve tenses.

In red are the names of the tenses, and in black is an example each time of that tense.

Alright?

But right now, you don't have to worry about that.

This is just to give you the big picture, alright?

But don't worry if you don't know the names of these tenses or the examples.

It doesn't matter at all.

Once we begin the program, you will be learning one tense at a time and you'll learn everything you need to know when you get to that tense.

Alright?

So, what do we need to see here, though, that is helpful to us?

So, even though there are twelve tenses, I've divided them in a particular way.

The first six are what I call the basic tenses.

Because usually, these are the ones you learn first when you start learning English.

The second part, the second six tenses are more advanced tenses.

Usually, you start learning those a little bit later.

That's the first part.

Now, let's look at it this way.

On this side, we see simple tenses.

On this side, we see continuous tenses, which are sometimes called progressive tenses.

But all those names, simple, continuous, doesn't matter right now.

Because when you get to that tense, you'll understand it.

What is important, though, is that many of the patterns and rules that you'll learn here will help you throughout this part of the tenses.

And many of the rules and patterns about grammar, pronunciation, and spelling that you learn right here with this continuous tense will help you all the way through to the most advanced tense.

What does that mean for you?

It means that, as you go forward in this program, from the beginner tenses and the more basic tenses to the more advanced tenses.

It's not - everything is not going to get harder.

Many of the points will actually become easier, because you will already have learned them up here in the basic tenses, or here, because many of these, as you can see - actually all of them have some sort of continuous aspect, which you will understand completely when you get there.

Okay?

So, that's the most important points that I think you should take away right now from this.

All you need to do at this point now is to begin the program with the first tense, which is the present simple tense.

So I wish you all the best.