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Both the past simple and the past continuous refer to completed actions in the past. Most of the time when we are talking about such actions, we use the past simple. This is by far the most common way of talking about the past. I lived there for 6 years. I only found out a…

All new verbs in English are regular. I photocopied the report. She faxed it to me. They emailed everybody about it. I googled my name and got more than 20 000 responses. There are approximately 180 irregular verbs. You don’t need to learn all of them because some of these are very rare but many…

(Please note that British and American English have different rules for the use of this tense. The explanation and exercises here refer to British English. In American English, it is often acceptable to use the past simple in some of these examples.) We use the present perfect when we want to look back from the…

Often there is very little difference between the present perfect simple and the present perfect continuous. In many cases, both are equally acceptable. They’ve been working here for a long time but Andy has worked here for even longer.  I’ve lived here for 10 years and she has been living here for 12 years. To…

This tense is used to talk about an action or actions that started in the past and continued until recently or that continue into the future: We can use it to refer to an action that has finished but you can still see evidence. Oh, the kitchen is a mess. Who has been cooking?  You…

(Remember that British and American English have different rules for the use of the present perfect. The comments and the exercises here refer to correct grammar for British English. In American English, it is often considered acceptable to use the past simple in some of these examples.) The past simple is used to talk about actions…

We use the past perfect simple to talk about what happened before a point in the past. It looks back from a point in the past to further in the past. I hadn’t known the bad news when I spoke to him. I checked with the supplier and they still hadn’t received the contract. She…