Grammar: Simple Present & Present Continuous Tenses

Name: ( )

Forms: The Simple Present Tense

• I/you/we/they/plural nouns + base form of verbs

E.g., I (write/writes) my parents a letter.

• He/she/it/singular nouns + base form of verbs + ‘s’ (e.g., make/makes)

E.g., Jie Shuen (write/writes) Abigail a letter.

• He/she/it/singular nouns + base form of verbs ending in -o, -sh, -ch + ‘es’ (e.g., catch/catches)
E.g., Yue Thong (catch/catches) the chicken herself.

• He/she/it/singular nouns + base form of verbs ending in a consonant and y – y + ‘ies’ (e.g., try/tries)
E.g., Eugene (try/tries) really hard to regurgitate what he learns about Mechanics.

• I/you/we/they/plural nouns/he/she/it/singular nouns + Do/Don’t/Does/Doesn’t + base form of verbs

E.g., Our new furniture (don’t/doesn’t) (fit/fits) through the door.
Some police (do/does) (know/knows) the law.

• (Wh-questions) + Do/Don’t/Does/Doesn’t + I/you/we/they/plural nouns/he/she/it/singular nouns

+ base form of verbs
E.g., Where (do/does) Kah Ying (get/gets) plastic surgery?
(Do/Does) Mun Sheng and Xuen Yin (live/lives) together?
• Questions with ‘Who’ is not often used with ‘do’ or ‘does’ – Who + base form of verbs + ‘s’/ ‘es’/
‘ies’
E.g., Who (play/plays/plaies) football at the weekend?
• The present tense form of the verb ‘be’: am/is/are, depending on the subject, whereas ‘have’:
have/has
E.g., The next flight (be) is at 7 tomorrow morning.
House prices (have) have come down recently.
• Plural/singular nouns + are/is + Past Participle – Passive Voice
E.g., Students (teach) are taught to read, write and count at school.

Prepared by Leonard Lim YiSheng

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the owner.
Grammar: Simple Present & Present Continuous Tenses
Name: ( )

Forms: The Present Continuous Tense

• I/you/we/they/plural nouns + am/are + V-ing

E.g., I ('m just leaving/ leave) work. I'll be home in an hour.

• He/She/It/singular nouns + is + V-ing

E.g., Can I take a message? Wei Xu (is taking/takes) a shower at the moment.

• Plural/singular nouns + is/are + being + Past Participle – Passive Voice

E.g., Yong Shen, together with his friends, (is chided/is being chided/ are chided/ are being chided)
for their bad manners at the moment.

Rules: The Simple Present & Present Continuous Tenses

1. Riko (is managing, manages) a boutique in the city on weekdays. She has been doing this for more
than five years.

Rule 1: The simple present tense is used to refer to regular actions or habits.

2. Meng Joe (is always sleeping, always sleeps) or (playing, plays) games in online class.

Rule 2: With adverbs of frequency (e.g., constantly, always), the simple present continuous tense
is used to express annoying habits.

3. My car (is being repaired, is repaired) in the garage now.

Rule 3: The present continuous tense is used to indicate that an action is going on at the moment
of speaking or writing.

4. Light (is travelling, travels) at almost 300,000 kilometres per second.

Rule 4: The simple present tense is used to talk about facts, general truth or something that is always
true.

5. My parents (are living/ live) in Petaling Jaya and (are working/ work) at the nearby hospital.

Rule 5: The simple present tense is used for permanent situations that remain unchanged for a long
time.

6. Kai Jean (is working/works) at a fast-food restaurant until his college reopens.

Rule 6: The present continuous tense is used to refer to situations which are temporary (lasting for
a short period of time around the present)

7. Hurry up! The tour bus (is leaving, leaves) in five minutes.

Rule 7: The simple present tense is used for fixed future actions that take place according to a
timetable or schedule.

Prepared by Leonard Lim YiSheng

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the owner.
Grammar: Simple Present & Present Continuous Tenses
Name: ( )

8. We (are leaving/ leave) for London next week.

Rule 8: The present continuous tense is used for future arrangement.

9. In this play, Julia Smith (is portraying/ portrays) a working woman raising two children on her
own.
Harry Potter (is going/goes) to Hogwarts School. He (is having, has) two close friends, Hermione
and …….
Rule 9: We use the simple present tense in reviews of books, plays, or films, and in commentaries
of ‘live’ events such as sports matches.

10. Jia Jun (admits, is admitting) that what I said earlier was inappropriate.

Rule 10: We can use the simple present tense to refer to short actions happening at the time of
speaking.

11. Qian Qin (is believing/believes) that all children are born with equal intelligence.

Rule 11: Stative verbs describing a state (i.e., thoughts and opinions, feelings and emotions, senses
and perceptions, possession and measurement) rather an action. Examples of stative verbs are agree,
believe, doubt, guess, imagine, know, remember, suspect, think, understand, dislike, hate, appear,
hear, see, feel, smell, taste, belong, have, measure, own, possess and weigh.

Prepared by Leonard Lim YiSheng

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the owner.