(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
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
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
(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
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
We use the past perfect continuous to look back at a situation in progress. It was a good time to invest. Inflation had been falling for several months. Before I changed jobs, I had been
We can use the past simple to talk about actions and states which we see as completed in the past. I left school when I was sixteen. I was very happy then. He told me all about his
We can use the past simple to talk about actions and states which we see as completed in the past. I left school when I was sixteen. I was very happy then. He told me all about his
There is no one ‘future tense’ in English. There are 4 future forms. The one which is used most often in spoken English is ‘going to’, not ‘will’. We use
Some people have been taught that ‘will’ is ‘the future’ in English. This is not correct. Sometimes when we talk about the future we cannot use ‘will’. Sometimes