Geek Weekend: How many tenses are there in English?

True or False, there are at least twelve tenses in English language?

After a comprehensive English-learning experience you have probably familiarized yourself with the following:

Present Simple, Present Continuous, Present Perfect, Present Perfect Continuous
Past Simple, Past Continuous, Past Perfect, Past Perfect Continuous
Future Simple, Future Continuous, Future Perfect, Future in the Past

So, true of false, at least twelve tenses exist in English? The answer is lurking after the break.

The answer.


False, there are two tenses in English. Yes, for those of you who spent ten years of your secondary education learning English and four more at the University level it might come as a shocking surprise, but there are only TWO tenses and they are Present and Past.

Verbs in English come in two shapes only, the present form and the past form (there is an infinitive but it doesn't refer to any time period, hence is not a tense but a mood).

According to a dictionary, "tense is a set of forms taken by a verb to indicate the time (and sometimes also the continuance or completeness) of the action in relation to the time of the utterance".

In Present Simple we use the present form, in Present Continuous we use the present form of the verb "be" (gerund or a verb with "ing" is not a verb), in Present Perfect we use the present form of a verb "have" and a past participle (AKA "the third form of the verb", which in fact is not a verb but a participle). The same goes for the past tense.

What about those "Continuous" and "Perfect" thingies? They are aspects that do not show when the action was happening but rather whether it is/was in progress, if it's a finished or unfinished action, if it's a regular action, if it's a planned action and so on. 

And the most fascinating thing of all, there is no future tense. There is no future! Well, as far as tenses go. The future is modelled with the present in various aspects. "Will" is a modal verb that is used to express hope, predictions without evidence, spontaneous decisions; Present Simple is used for timetables, Present Continuous is used for planned actions on our agenda, and then the present form of "be going to", which is sort of Present Continuous, is used to make predictions with clearly visible evidence and for non-spontaneous decisions.  

I often say that English is simple but no one believes me and argues there are so many tenses to learn. There are two tenses, three aspects, and four moods. It just doesn't get any easier as far as learning a language goes. If instead of learning each "tense" separately, students understood aspects and moods, then they could learn all that Future Perfect / Passive Present Continuous nonsense much faster and in a more natural non-threatening way.