VERB TENSES REVIEW.

SENTENCES CHANGE THEIR MEANING WITH A DIFFERENT VERBAL TENSE.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE TABLE OF ENGLISH TENSES.

One sentence is put into different tenses. You can see how the meaning changes.

The words in green are signal words. They tell you which tense you have to use.

Tense	Example	Explanation
Simple Present	I play football every week.	Here you want to say that it happens regularly.
Present Progressive	I'm playing football now.	Here you want to say that it is happening at the moment.
Simple Past	I played football yesterday.	You did it yesterday, it happened in the past.
Past Progressive	I was playing football the whole evening.	You were doing it in the past. It's not sure whether the action was finished or not.
Present Perfect	I have just played football.	You have just finished it. So it has a connection to the present. Maybe your clothes are dirty.
Present Perfect Progressive	I have been playing football for 2 hours.	You want to say how long you have been doing it. (You started in the past and it continues up to the present.
Past Perfect	I had played football before Susan came.	The two actions are related to each other: you had finished to play football and after that the girl arrived.
Past Perfect Progressive	I had been playing football for two hours when Susan came.	Here you want to point out how long you had been doing it before the girl came.
will-future	I will/shall play football next week.	This is a prediction, you can probably do something else.
going to-future	I'm going to play football this afternoon.	This is a plan you've made.
Future Progressive	I will/shall be playing football next Sunday.	You do it every Sunday (as usual)
Future Perfect	I will/shall have played football by tomorrow.	You will have done it before tomorrow.
Conditional Simple	I would play football.	You'll probably do it.
Conditional Progressive	I would be playing football.	You'll probably do it. Here you concentrate more on the progress of the action.
Conditional Perfect	I would have played football.	You'll probably have finished playing football at a special time in the future. Here you concentrate on the fact (football).
Conditional Perfect Progressive	I would have been playing football.	You'll probably have finished playing football at a special time in the future. Here you concentrate on the progress of playing (football).