I'm Alice Bryant.

Do you have trouble with English verb tenses?

If so, you are not alone.

Verb tenses can be difficult toe learn in a foreign language.

Different cultures think about time in different ways.

Chinese, for example, has no grammatical verb tense.

Other languages, like Swahili, have recent and distant past tenses.

Over the next several episodes, we will talk about the burp 10th system in English.

Verb tenses Tell us how in action relates to the flow of time.

The English language divides verbs in tow.

Three main tenses present past and future.

Those three tenses are each divided into four smaller groups.

Simple, progressive, perfect and perfect progressive.

There are 12 verb tenses in English, but here is the good news.

Most of the time, we Onley use four or five of them to make almost all verb tenses.

You have to put a form of the word have be or will in front of the verb.

English verb tenses give many details about time and action, such as Is the action finished?

And was the action repeated?

It can be hard to think about time distinctions that you do not have in your own language.

That is why our goal over the next several episodes is to help you understand each verb tense better, and that's everyday grammar.