English Grammar Tenses

by Susan Oliver
(Montrose, CA)

I am trying to teach a gal, at my dentist's office the tenses we have in English. She gets confused about past, present and future tenses as to when to use them. Ex. go and gone, came and come.

I am a teacher on disability and can't afford books for her. I was looking for something that would give her samples that she could use to tell her the tense, like a cheat sheet with sentences that would work 85% of the time and then after she has confidence teach her why she is doing this and why it works sometimes and doesn't work because of the exceptions in our English language.

Can you assist with this? Thank you so much. Susan

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Hi Susan,

What a great idea! A “tenses cheat sheet”. I am going to have put some thought and work into that. Creating examples for each tense and focusing on why you use the tense, rather than what tense it is. I'm going to work on it (but I am not sure if I can guarantee that it will be in the near future, as I have a lot on my plate right now.

I will keep you posted but I am sure you could get the ball rolling yourself. Just do exactly what you said. Create some universal examples for each tense and focus on why you use that structure (rather than the structure itself).

I'll let you know when I have had time to work on the cheat sheet. :)

Cheers,
Diana