All 12 English tenses, explained for Indian kids

The pattern behind the 12

There are three times: present, past, future. Each has four shapes: simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous. Three times four is twelve. That is the whole system.

• Simple is a fact or a habit. I eat.
• Continuous is happening right at that moment. I am eating.
• Perfect is finished, and the finishing matters now. I have eaten.
• Perfect continuous is how long it has been going on. I have been eating for an hour.

Present tenses

Past tenses

Same four shapes. The helper words change.

• Simple past: I went to school yesterday. मैं कल स्कूल गया।
• Past continuous: I was eating when he called. जब उसने फ़ोन किया तब मैं खा रहा था।
• Past perfect: I had finished my homework before dinner. खाने से पहले मैं होमवर्क कर चुका था।
• Past perfect continuous: I had been waiting for an hour. मैं एक घंटे से इंतज़ार कर रहा था।

Past perfect is the one children overuse. It is only for the earlier of two past events. If there is only one past event, simple past is correct.

Future tenses

• Simple future: I will go tomorrow. मैं कल जाऊँगा।
• Future continuous: I will be studying at 8 pm. मैं आठ बजे पढ़ रहा हूँगा।
• Future perfect: I will have finished by Friday. मैं शुक्रवार तक ख़त्म कर चुका हूँगा।
• Future perfect continuous: I will have been studying for three hours. मैं तीन घंटे से पढ़ रहा हूँगा।

The full chart

Print this. Stick it inside the cupboard door, not on the study wall where it becomes invisible within a week.

The four that matter for exams

School papers for Class 5 to 8 draw most marks from four tenses. If time is short, these four come first.

1. Simple present for facts and habits, and for answering comprehension questions about a text.
2. Simple past for stories, diary entries and anything that happened.
3. Present continuous for picture descriptions, which appear in nearly every paper.
4. Present perfect for letters and for anything recent.

The perfect continuous family is worth recognising but rarely worth producing at this level. Do not let a child lose confidence over it.

How to practise without a workbook

Filling tense blanks teaches recognition, not production. These take five minutes and teach production.

• The three-times game. Give one action. The child says it three ways. I drink milk. I drank milk. I will drink milk.
• Narrate the room. The child describes what people at home are doing right now, aloud, for one minute. Pure present continuous practice.
• Yesterday in five sentences. Every night, five sentences about the day just gone, written down. Simple past, every time, with real content they care about.

Pair this with the sentence-building method in our post on writing in English what your child thinks in Hindi, and the tenses start appearing in real writing rather than only in exercises.