Name: 5 Tenses = 90% of English
Uploaded: 2025-07-01T21:07:21.000Z
Duration: 10 min 34 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hello, lovely students, and welcome back to English with Lucy.

I have got such an exciting video for you because now there are various studies, various claims, but the general consensus is that 90 to up to 95% of all written and spoken English is done in just five grammar tenses.

To-infinitive

We are going to go through those five grammar tenses so that you can get that little bit closer to fluency.

We're going to improve your grammar, fluency, and accuracy in the most efficient way possible.

To make your life even easier, I have created a free PDF for you to download.

It contains all of the information about these five grammar tenses that make up 90, if not 95% of spoken and written English.

We look at them in greater detail with more examples, and I've also included a quiz so you can test your understanding.

If you think that that will help you, if you'd like to get your free copy, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box, you enter your name and your email address, you sign up to my mailing list, and the PDF will arrive directly in your inbox.

After that, you will automatically receive my free lesson PDFs every week, plus all of my news, course information, and offers.

It's a free service, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Okay, let's start this amazingly efficient grammar lesson by reviewing the English verb tenses.

So technically, there are only three tenses, the present, the past, and the future, but we have four different aspects within these tenses, the simple, the continuous, the perfect simple, and the perfect continuous.

When we combine these four aspects with the three verb tenses, we get what we typically refer to as the 12 verb tenses.

Some people like to include the conditionals in the tenses.

You will hear some people say there are 16 tenses.

Let's have a look at each one really quickly just to refresh our memories.

The present simple is used for general truths, habits, and permanent situations.

The present continuous is used for actions happening now or around the present moment.

The present perfect is used for past actions with a connection to the present or for experiences, and the present perfect continuous is used for actions that started in the past and are ongoing up to the present.

The past simple is used to talk about completed actions in the past.

The past continuous is used for actions that were in progress at a specific time in the past.

The past perfect is used for actions completed before a specific time in the past, and the past perfect continuous is used for actions that started in the past, continued, and were completed before another past event.

Don't worry, we'll look at some of these in more detail.

We have the future simple, used for actions that will happen in the future.

The future continuous, used for actions that will be in progress at a specific time in the future.

The future perfect, used for actions that will be completed before a specific time in the future.

And the future perfect continuous, used for actions that will start in the future, continue, and be completed before another future event.

Okay, that's a lot of information to remember, and I covered it very, very briefly.

I know a lot of English learners struggle with deciding which verb tense to use in a given situation.

Well, lucky for you, not all verb tenses are created equal.

Let's go ahead and look at this beautiful chart I made to see which are the five most commonly used verb tenses in both spoken and written English.

By the way, if you're curious about the numbers, I've added links to various studies on verb tense frequency.

You can find those in the description box.

Our most common verb tense, making up nearly 60% of all English communication, is drum roll, the present simple.

We then have that followed by the past simple at close to 20%, then the future simple at around 8%.

So that's three tenses making nearly 88% of the entire usage, according to certain studies.

Then we have the present perfect simple at around 6%, and present continuous at 5%.

And then we have this tiny sliver of pie that contains the other seven verb tenses.

Now, if you're good at maths, you'll notice that's 99% for all of those tenses.

In the title, I say 90% because I don't 100% trust those numbers.

Each and every verb tense has its time and place, but for general day-to-day conversations, these five are going to be your bread and butter.

So let's go ahead and see how you can start using each of these tenses to the best of your ability.

As you just learned, the present simple makes up a large portion of daily communication, and rightfully so.

Let's look at some of the most common uses of the present simple.

Firstly, we use it to talk about facts and statements that are always true.

Most people prefer to shop online, or the supermarket is busy on Saturday mornings.

We also use it for statements that are true in the present.

And we also use it for routine actions or habits in the present, often used with an adverb of frequency.

Or I never see her in yoga class these days.

We use it to refer to scheduled events in the future.

Carmine's holiday officially starts on the 5th of October.

Or my stag do kicks off at 10 p.m. at Boots and Brews.

And the last one I'll mention today, we use it to give directions or instructions.

Mix the flour and water together to create a thick paste.

Or to get to the bookshop, walk down to the corner and take a left.

As you can probably tell from our examples, these kinds of statements and questions make up a large portion of our daily conversations.

So it's no wonder why the present simple topped our list.

Of course, this is the second most used verb tense because we use it to talk about completed actions in the past, and we sure do love to talk about the past.

Look at a news article or pick up your favourite book.

Most of them rely heavily on the past simple tense.

Let's go ahead and look at some uses of this very versatile tense.

It's commonly used to describe actions that occurred at a specific time in the past.

I visited Greece last summer with my girlfriend.

It's also used to narrate a series of past events.

Yolanda woke up, brushed her teeth, and headed off to the office.

It's used to express habitual or repeated actions in the past.

Every morning, Ben watered his plants and fed his dog.

And number four, it's used to discuss past states or conditions.

We were so tired after our long hike yesterday.

All right, next up, we have the future simple tense.

Predictions, the weather forecast says it will rain tomorrow.

Promises, I will get to the office 20 minutes early to get everything set up.

Offers, mum will be happy to help you with your project if you need it.

Good, because it's time to move on from the future simple and talk about the present perfect simple.

Don't let its long and slightly confusing name fool you.

It's actually quite an easy tense to master.

We use it to talk about unfinished states or actions that started in the past.

He's been in his new position for about two weeks.

We use it to talk about completed actions with relevance to the present.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

5 Tenses = 90% of English

specific

incredibly

present

reveal