Business Grammar Builder

Appendix 4 Diagram of the English verb system

Notes to the diagram
The diagram isa way of showing the whole English tense system in a simplified form. Using the diagram has
three benefits:
It can help to study the individual tensesif you see at the same time how they are all related.
It showsthat there isa pattern and logic to English verbs.
Some people like a visual picture to help them to understand and learn.
Read through these notesand refer to the diagram at the same time:
1 The first time line showsthe past simple asa completed action/situation, the present simple as
referring to actions/situationsthat go all along the time line (facts, habits, etc), and the will future
asa future fact or general belief.
2 The second time line showsthe three continuoustenses, which all have the meaning of an action in
progress(there isalso an associated meaning that the action hasa limited duration).
3 The third time line showsthe three perfect tenses, which all have the meaning of looking back. The
past perfect looksback from the past, the present perfect looksback from the present, and the
future perfect looksback from the future.
4 The fourth time line showsthe three perfect continuoustenses, which all have the meaning of
looking back at an action in progress. Note that thisisa combination of the meaningsof the
previoustwo lines.
5 The fifth time line showsthe two waysto use going to, which both have a meaning of looking
forward.
Units18 of the book have a much fuller explanation of all these verb tenses.
There are some usesof English verbsthat a diagram cannot show. M any of these other usescan be
explained by one idea: the past in English can refer to social distance and distant probability aswell asits
more obviousmeaning of distance in time. So:
Knowing that we can use the past to show social distance helpsto understand why Could I ...? ismore
formal or polite than Can I ...?
Knowing that we can use the past to show distant probability helpsto understand why we use it for
imaginary or unlikely situations( If I were the Finance Minister, Id ...).
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Business Grammar Builder
Future perfect
continuous
Present perfect
continuous
Past Present Future
Past Simple will future Present simple
I started this job
three years ago.
Ill be forty next year.
Inflation will probably
rise in the long term.
I usually leave home around 7:30.
Key
In progress Looking
back
Looking back at an
action in progress
Looking
forward
While I was working at
ABC I moved from Sales
to Marketing.
Ill be working at our
Paris office next year.
Were developing two new
products at the moment.
The merger had already
happened when I joined
the company.
By the end of the year sales
will have improved.
Ive been in this job for
three years.
Ive finished the report.
Wed been selling the
same product for years
before we changed the
design.
If I retire when Im sixty Ill
have been working here
for more than twenty years.
Ive been writing this report
all morning.
Sorry, I was going to call
you, but I completely forgot.
Im going to ask my boss for a pay rise.
Thats going to be difficult.
Past continuous Future continuous Present continuous
Past perfect Future perfect Present perfect
Past perfect
continuous
going to future was going to
Thispage hasbeen downloaded from www.businessenglishonline.net.
It isphotocopiable, but all copiesmust be complete pages.
Copyright M acmillan PublishersLimited 2003.