An EASY Way to Remember All 12 English Tenses | Meet Their Personalities!

Hi everyone, my name is Arnel and welcome to today's lesson. Today we're diving into one of the most important and let's be honest, sometimes confusing topics in English grammar. Tenses. There are 12 tenses in English. Grammar rules are important, they are not always easy to remember. Today let's make tenses memorable. How are we going to do this? What if each tense had a personality? Because they do. Yep, the present simple is Mr. Bored, the present perfect is Ms. Show-off, future continuous is Mr. Excuse, etc. These characters will help you understand, remember, and hopefully make learning tenses a lot more fun. Let's meet our first character. Are you ready? Let's start. Let's start with the present simple tense, Mr. Bored. He lives the same day over and over again. He says things like, I always wake up at seven. I wear a blue shirt to work every day. I need glasses to read. Everything is the same. The present simple is used to talk about repeated habits, facts, and routines. It's simple, predictable, and yes, a little boring, just like Mr. Bored. In the present simple, we use the base form of the verb, wake up, wear, need, go. Don't forget, for he, she, and it, we usually add s or es to the verb. Next up, the present continuous tense. Say hello to Mr. Right Now, and in English, right now means this moment. He only talks about what's happening right now, as you're watching. He says things like, you are watching this video now. You are using your eyes. I am wearing a gray shirt. Are you smiling too? The present continuous is used to describe actions happening right now, things that are temporary and in progress. Temporary means short term. The present continuous is formed, am, are, is, plus a verb, ing. You are watching. You are using. He is smiling. It's all about what's happening now. Mr. Right Now never misses a thing, and he doesn't care about yesterday. He doesn't care about later. Now let's meet the present perfect tense. Introducing Mr. Show-off. And show-off is a phrasal verb. It means you tell people about all the great things you have in your life, or you show people. Like this man here. He is showing off. Look at me. Look what I have. So the present perfect is Mr. Show-off. Nobody likes people who show off, and nobody likes the present perfect tense, so this is perfect. She loves telling you everything she's done, not exact dates, just highlights. I have visited over 60 countries. Of course I have seen that movie. I've seen it 100 times. I've been a straight A student my entire life. We use the present perfect tense to talk about past experiences or actions that we think are still important in the present. It's perfect for showing off what you've done in life without saying when. No specific time is used. Not. I've seen it yesterday. We can say something like I've seen it before. You know, when people show off, they're often not specific. They really want to tell you about the great things, but there are no details. Present perfect, no specific time, like yesterday, 2021, 3 p.m. Nope. We form the present perfect with have, has, plus past participle. What's the past participle verb number three like? Visit, visited, visited. Seen, saw, seen. This is the past participle verb number three. So next time you want to impress someone, speak like Ms. Show-off. Okay, it's important for me to mention that today's lesson is about helping you remember the tenses easily. I really want to make each tense memorable for my students, but if you want a complete grammar guide with all the rules and specific details, you can watch my one-hour lesson on the I'll link this video down below for you. Also, I made it my mission to create a workbook on just the 12 tenses. Inside the 61-page PDF workbook, you'll find detailed descriptions of each tense with colorful visuals to help you remember better, clear explanations, real-life examples, and lots of practice exercises, helpful review activities with answers included so you can check your progress instantly. Also, answers to some of the most common questions students ask about the tenses. If you think this can help you, I'll leave a link to my store if you're interested. Let's move on to the next personality. I don't know if you like him or not. Present perfect continuous is Mr. Complain. Mr. Complain. He never stops talking about how long something has been bothering him. He loves to remind you about things that started in the past and are still happening. He says things like, we've been waiting for our food for over half an hour. Max has been using my coffee cup at work. Why has it been raining for weeks? You've been sniffling all day. Get a tissue. And sniffling is to do this. We use the present perfect continuous to describe actions that started in the past and are still going on now. Usually, Mr. Complain tells you how long something has been happening. Duration is often included. For over half an hour. For weeks. All day. Things like that. Form the present perfect continuous with have or has been plus verb-ing. Have been waiting. Has been using. Has been raining. Have been sniffling. If you want to remember the present perfect continuous, think of something to complain about. I'm sure you can think of something. Past simple. Ms. Checklist. Let's quickly talk about what a checklist is. A checklist is a list of everything you need to do. When you finish the task, you check it off. We can only write a check when actions are finished. Done. Ms. Checklist. She loved to talk about things she finished in the past. She always knows exactly when things happen. She says things like, Yesterday, I finished my English essay. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. We left for our trip on the 9th and got back on the 17th. I already ate lunch. We use the past simple to describe completed actions that happened in the past. Ms. Checklist always remembers to give you a specific time or date. Yesterday. 1928. The 9th and the 17th. And perhaps not in the same sentence, but in the context of a conversation, you will know when something happened. Like I already ate. In the conversation, we know when this happened. Form the past simple with verb number two. Remember our verbs from earlier? Visit. Visited. Visited. See. Saw. Seen. We use verb two in the past simple. Discovered. Left. Got back. Ate. If you want to speak about the past, finish actions. Done. B. Ms. Checklist. Past continuous. The storyteller. The storyteller loves telling stories. It's so important that he paints a picture with his words to tell you what is happening in the background. The emotion of a situation. I was driving down the road and it was getting dark. I heard a woman scream and I slammed on my brakes. We use the past continuous to describe background actions that were in progress when something else interrupted. Was driving down the road. It was getting dark is the background. It really gives you the feeling of the situation. So the storyteller sets the scene. What was happening before the interruption or two things that were happening at the same time. We form the past continuous with was, were plus verb ing. Was driving. Was getting dark. The past perfect is the explainer. Let's start with three sentences. We'll do this one a little bit differently. Everyone was disappointed. I couldn't get into my house. Paula couldn't get out of the contract and to get out of a contract means to end a contract usually early. Why was everyone disappointed? Why couldn't you get into your house? Why couldn't she get out of the contract? We need a past perfect. The explainer. Everyone was disappointed because the boss had canceled the party. I couldn't get into my house as I had left my keys at work. Paula couldn't get out of the contract because she had already signed it. You see the past perfect, Mr. Explainer, always tells you what happened before another past action. This way you are not confused about why and when things happened. We form the past perfect had plus past participle. Had canceled. Had left. Had signed. Now meet the detective. The past perfect continuous. Always digging deep to figure out what was happening before another event in the past. He notices the little clues and stories behind the scenes. He says things like, whoever stole the jewels had obviously been planning this heist for quite some time. It had been raining since Monday so I couldn't understand why the river was so low. We use the past perfect continuous to describe an action that was in progress before or up to another past action. It often includes how long something had been happening. The duration or starting point like for quite some time or since Monday. Form the past perfect continuous with had been plus verb ing. They had been planning. Had been raining. Use this tense to reveal the backstory. Everything that had been happening before another action. Just like a detective. Now meet the future simple. Madam exact. She's always precise and confident about the future. When she's speaking there's no guessing. Everything will happen exactly as she says. She says things like, I will start our lesson at exactly nine o'clock. Everything you need for the exam will be provided. The sun will rise at 6 0 3 a.m tomorrow morning. We use a future simple to talk about future facts, predictions and promises. When madam exact uses will it shows a definite feeling. She's sure about things. There's no doubt about it. Form the future simple with will plus base verb. The base verb is verb number one. Again remember our verbs? So if you want to sound sure and definite about the future speak like madam exact. Future continuous. Mr excuse. Meet Mr excuse. He always has a reason why he can't do something. He talks about what he'll be busy doing in the future so you'll understand why he's not free. He says things like, sorry I can't help you move this weekend. I'll be helping my grandma paint our kitchen. Next week we'll all be working on an important project so there'll be no time for me to study. And Mr excuse always gives himself an excuse but he doesn't want an excuse from you. I hope you'll be cooking when I get home. We use the future continuous to describe an action that will be in progress during a specific time in the future. You see because he's so busy during this time he can't help you. He has an excuse. Form the future continuous with will be plus a verb ing. Will be helping. Will be working. Will be cooking. So if you want to give a polite excuse or talk about future activities in progress speak like Mr future perfect. Competitive Carla. Competitive Carla is always looking ahead. Always planning to win and love to remind you what she will have accomplished before anyone else. She says things like by this time next year I will have won at least three gold medals. My team will have finished this project by the time your team starts. Of course I will have gotten a promotion by then. We use the future perfect to describe an action that will be completed before a specific time in the future. Competitive Carla likes using by to show the deadline she'll be. By is her deadline. Will have a past participle. Will have won. Will have finished. Will have gotten. If you want to talk about future achievements and sound like you are way ahead of the game speak like Competitive Carla. Last but not least the future perfect continuous Mr. Projection. He loves charts, forecasts and looking way ahead. He doesn't just talk about the future. He talks about what will have been happening by that time. He says things like in two years our satellite will have been collecting data for a decade. By the end of the second quarter our company will have been growing five percent each month for a year. We use the future perfect continuous to describe an action that will have been continuing up to a future point in time. Mr. Projection is always thinking about duration and long-term progress. A duration is usually included like for a year for a decade. Form the future perfect continuous with will have been plus a verb ing. Will have been growing. Will have been working. So if you're thinking about long-term and love forecasting future progress talk like Mr. Projection. Think of your own example here. By 20 let's see by 2030 I will have been learning English for years. Let me know in the comments and if you're watching this at its past 2030 give me another example. All 12 tenses done. Which character or personality do you like best? Which one do you relate to most? Here's a summary. 12 personalities that's a lot. You would never want 12 personalities in one room right? Just like you wouldn't want to use all 12 tenses in one paragraph. It would be unusual to use all of these in one story as well. Remember this lesson is a general overview of the tenses to help remind you how they are used and to make tenses a little bit more memorable. Can you give me any example sentences? I really love hearing from you. I truly hope this lesson helped you and that you had a little bit of fun. I can't wait to make another lesson for you. Thank you so much for watching. See you next time. Bye!