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Simple Present Tense

The simple present tense is used to express habits, general truths, repeated actions, unchanging situations, emotions, wishes, instructions, directions, and fixed arrangements or future time after conjunctions. It is not used to express actions happening now. The simple present is formed by using the base form of the verb for all persons except the third person singular, which takes -s, -ies or -es depending on the verb.

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482 views3 pages

Simple Present Tense

The simple present tense is used to express habits, general truths, repeated actions, unchanging situations, emotions, wishes, instructions, directions, and fixed arrangements or future time after conjunctions. It is not used to express actions happening now. The simple present is formed by using the base form of the verb for all persons except the third person singular, which takes -s, -ies or -es depending on the verb.

Uploaded by

Yosefian Ilyas
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Simple present tense

The simple present tense is used:

To express habits, general truths, repeated actions or unchanging situations, emotions


and wishes:
I smoke (habit); I work in London (unchanging situation); London is a large city
(general truth)

To give instructions or directions:


You walk for two hundred meters, then you turn left.

To express fixed arrangements, present or future:


Your exam starts at 09.00

To express future time, after some conjunctions: after, when, before, as soon as,
until:
He'll give it to you when you come next Saturday.

Be careful! The simple present is not used to express actions happening now.

Examples

For habits
He drinks tea at breakfast.
She only eats fish.
They watch television regularly.

For repeated actions or events


We catch the bus every morning.
It rains every afternoon in the hot season.
They drive to Monaco every summer.

For general truths


Water freezes at zero degrees.
The Earth revolves around the Sun.
Her mother is Peruvian.

For instructions or directions


Open the packet and pour the contents into hot water.
You take the No.6 bus to Watney and then the No.10 to Bedford.

For fixed arrangements


His mother arrives tomorrow.
Our holiday starts on the 26th March

With future constructions


She'll see you before she leaves.
We'll give it to her when she arrives.

Forming the simple present tense: to think


Affirmative
I think
You think
He thinks
She thinks
It thinks
We think
They think

Interrogative
Do I think?
Do you think?
Does he think?
Does she think?
Does it think?
Do we think?
Do they think?

Negative
I do not think
You do not think
He does not think
She does not think
It does not think
We do not think.
They do not think.

Notes on the simple present, third person singular

In the third person singular the verb always ends in -s:


he wants, she needs, he gives, she thinks.

Negative and question forms use DOES (= the third person of the auxiliary 'DO') +
the infinitive of the verb.
He wants ice cream. Does he want strawberry? He does not want vanilla.

Verbs ending in -y : the third person changes the -y to -ies:


fly --> flies, cry --> cries
Exception: if there is a vowel before the -y:
play --> plays, pray --> prays

Add -es to verbs ending in:-ss, -x, -sh, -ch:


he passes, she catches, he fixes, it pushes

Examples

He goes to school every morning.

She understands English.

It mixes the sand and the water.

He tries very hard.

She enjoys playing the piano.

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