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The past progressive (past continuous) is formed using the simple past of be (was or were) with present participle (sometimes referred to as the -ing form) of the main verb: He was going. This form indicates that an action was ongoing at the past time under consideration, often interrupted by another past action (as in I was having a shower ...
Regular verbs form the simple past end-ed; however there are a few hundred irregular verbs with different forms. [2] The spelling rules for forming the past simple of regular verbs are as follows: verbs ending in -e add only –d to the end (e.g. live – lived, not *liveed), verbs ending in -y change to -ied (e.g. study – studied) and verbs ending in a group of a consonant + a vowel + a ...
However other state verbs use the present progressive or present simple depending on whether the state is considered temporary or permanent: The pen is lying on the table; Paris lies on the Seine. For past actions or states, the simple past is generally used: He went out an hour ago; Columbus knew the shape of the world.
The implications of the present perfect (that something occurred prior to the present moment) are similar to those of the simple past, although the two forms are generally not used interchangeably—the simple past is used when the time frame of reference is in the past, while the present perfect is used when it extends to the present. For ...
The present indicative active and the present infinitive are both based on the present stem. It is not possible to infer the stems for other tenses from the present stem. This means that, although the infinitive active form normally shows the verb conjugation, knowledge of several different forms is necessary to be able to confidently produce ...
Most simple sentences in tensed languages exhibit absolute tense. For example, if Jane says "John went to the party", the use of the past tense (went) implies that the event (John's going) took place at a time which is in the past relative to the moment of Jane's uttering the sentence.
No particular past time frame is specified for the action/event. When a past time frame (a point of time in the past, or period of time which ended in the past) is specified for the event, explicitly or implicitly, the simple past is used rather than the present perfect. The tense may be said to be a sort of mixture of present and past.
Simple present : The simple present tense is employed in a sentence to represent an action or event that takes place in the present regularly. Present perfect : The present perfect tense is utilized for events that begin in the past and continue to the moment of speaking, or to express the result of a past situation.