Level: beginner
The present tense is the base form of the verb:
I work in London.
But with the third person singular (she/he/it), we add an –s:
She works in London.
Present simple questions
Look at these questions:
Do you play the piano?
Where do you live?
Does Jack play football?
Where does he come from?
Do Rita and Angela live in Manchester?
Where do they work?
We use do and does to make questions with the present simple. We use does for the third person singular (she/he/it) and do for the others.
We use do and does with question words like where, what and when:
Where do Angela and Rita live?
What does Angela do?
When does Rita usually get up?
But questions with who often don't use do or does:
Who lives in London?
Who plays football at the weekend?
Who works at Liverpool City Hospital?
Here are some useful questions. Try to remember them:
| Where do you come from? Do you come from …? Where do you live? Do you live in ...? |
What work do you do? Do you like …? Do you know …? |
- Present simple questions 1
- Present simple questions 2
- Present simple questions 3
- Present simple questions 4
Present simple negatives
Look at these sentences:
I like tennis but I don't like football. (don't = do not)
I don't live in London now.
I don't play the piano but I play the guitar.
They don't work at the weekend.
John doesn't live in Manchester. (doesn't = does not)
Angela doesn't drive to work. She goes by bus.
We use do and does to make negatives with the present simple. We use doesn't for the third person singular (she/he/it) and don't for the others.
- Present simple negatives 1
- Present simple negatives 2
Present simple and present time
We use the present simple to talk about:
- something that is true in the present:
I'm nineteen years old.
I'm a student.
He lives in London.
- something that happens regularly in the present:
I play football every weekend.
- something that is always true:
The human body contains 206 bones.
Light travels at almost 300,000 kilometres per second.
We often use adverbs of frequency like sometimes, always and never with the present simple:
I sometimes go to the cinema.
She never plays football.
Here are some useful sentences. Complete them so that they are true for you and try to remember them:
| My name is … . I'm … years old. I come from … . I live in … . |
I'm a(n) … . I … at the weekend. I often … . I never … . |
Complete these sentences so that they are true for a friend and try to remember them:
| Her/His name is … . She's/He's … years old. She/He comes from … . She/He lives in … . |
She's/He's a(n) … . She/He … at the weekend. She/He often … . She/He never … . |
- Present simple 1
- Present simple 2
- Present simple 3
- Present simple 4
- Present simple 5
- Present simple 6
- Present simple 7
Level: intermediate
Present simple and future time
We also use the present simple to talk about:
- something that is fixed in the future:
The school term starts next week.
The train leaves at 19.45 this evening.
We fly to Paris next week.
- something in the future after time words like when, after and before and after if and unless:
I'll talk to John when I see him.
You must finish your work before you go home.
If it rains we'll get wet.
He won't come unless you ask him.
- Present simple 8
Level: advanced
We sometimes use the present simple to talk about the past when we are:
- telling a story:
I was walking down the street the other day when suddenly this man comes up to me and tells me he has lost his wallet and asks me to lend him some money. Well, he looks a bit dangerous so I'm not sure what to do and while we are standing there …
- summarising a book, film or play:
Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts School. He has two close friends, Hermione and …
Shakespeare's Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark. One night he sees his father's ghost. The ghost tells him he has been murdered …
Hi Lal
I would put a comma there, but not everyone would. If you're writing for a publication, the style guide used by the publishing house will likely prefer one usage or the other.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello mazi70,
Both forms are possible but the present simple ('hurts') is more likely. The continuous form would be used when the pain suddenly occurs, not when there is an ongoing problem.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello mazi70,
The continuous form here would emphasise that the pain is happening as the person speaks rather than being a constant feeling:
My head hurts = it's sore
My head is hurting = it wasn't sore some time (a moment) ago but now it is
Thus, if we are talking about a problem which is constant (even if it only began yesterday) then we would use the simple form. If we are talking about, say, an intermittent pain which comes and goes then the continuous form.
My head hurts all the time. It started a week ago.
My head is hurting. It was fine when I came in but now it's quite painful.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Lal,
That is correct. Well done.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Lal,
They both sound fine to me. In writing, I would punctuate them differently -- something like: 'If a person is trying to go up the ladder, give them a push -- don't pull them down.'
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lal,
As you say, usually we do not use these verbs with continuous aspect. However, there are exceptions when we want to emphasise that something is (a) temporary and also (b) not typical, or when there has been a change. Thus I can say I'm feeling good if normally or recently I was not in good form (I was sick, for example). I might say It's looking good if it was not good up to now but has just changed.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Lal,
Both forms are fine, though the present perfect form is probably more common.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Lal,
In theory, what you say is correct, but the sentences you've chosen to transform are not ones that you'd likely find in the passive. It's more common for the active verb to have a simple direct object, e.g. 'Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet', which could be rendered 'Romeo and Juliet was written by Shakespeare' in the passive. Though really, we usually use the passive when we want to de-emphasise the agent, so it's more common in sentences such as 'Mistakes were made' (we don't want to say who made the mistakes) than it is to find one such as the example with Shakespeare.
Have you seen our active and passive voice page? This sort of question would be better asked there.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Lal,
That really depends on who (or 'whom') you ask, but I'd say the vast majority of native speakers of British and American English would just say 'who' in this and similar sentences. Fifty years ago, there would have been more who used 'whom' instead of 'who', and they'd likely have insisted on it being more correct, but this attitude is much harder to find nowadays.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lal,
We use te auxiliary verb 'are' for question tags in the first person, so the tag would be as follows:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lal,
The first sentence is fine, though 'who' is more common in modern English than 'whom'.
The second sentence needs commas around the relative clause:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Lal,
'dozen' is plural, for the reasons you mention. The Cambridge Dictionary's entry for 'dozen' shows this clearly where it says noun [C]. The 'C' shows that it is a count noun; unless otherwise specificed, nouns are listed in their singular form in the dictionary.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Lal,
Both sentences are grammatically correct. Well done!
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Lal,
It is possible, though a bit unusual, to use the present perfect in questions beginning with 'when'. You could say, for example, 'When have I ever lied to you?' and that is correct, but in most instances asking this sort of question is probably going to asking a question about a finished past time and so the past simple is more likely, as you suppose.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lal,
All of those questions are correct. Well done, you got it!
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lal,
It is possible to make two different kinds of questions with 'who' (and with some other question words as well): subject questions and object questions. Subject question do not use an auxiliary verb while object questions do. For example:
For more information and examples please see this page.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello boon tee,
The correct word here is 'were'. Nature is not saying anything, so it is clearly an imaginary situation.
The sentence is a complex one but it has a conditional structure: if you look, it is...
The rest is the complement of the verb 'is', and the 'as if' phrase is part of this.
In modern English you can use 'was' after 'if' (If I was / If I were) without changing the meaning.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lal,
The questions should be as follows:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lal,
You can omit the second 'in' here. We often omit repeated words. For example, all of the following are grammatically correct:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lal,
It is possible to use a singular or a plural verb after 'each'. If the noun following 'each' is singular, then a singular verb is used; if it is plural, then a plural verb is used:
In the example you quote, 'who each' refers back to the four people in the team, so a plural verb is used.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi QaaZee,
Both forms are possible. The present simple (start) can be used because the school holidays are a scheduled event. The modal verb will can be used because the speaker is talking about a future which is definite.
There are other possible reasons for the use of will. For example, the speaker may have just decided when the school holidays will start. The context is unknown, so we can only speculate which form would be better. Without any context to guide us, we can only say that both are possible.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi zghoul,
Generally speaking, we use continuous forms when an action is incomplete, in progress or temporary.
In this case the first sentence tells us that either the speaker is in the process of studying computer engineering right now (they could be preparing for a test on this subject, for example) or the speaker is a student of this subject but sees it as a temporary situation. For example, they might say I'm studying computer engineering at the moment, but soon I'll finish my studies and find a job.
We use simple forms when something is seen as a permanent situation which we do not expect to change in the near future. A person might say this when they are a student and will remain a student for the foreseeable future, or if they are a researcher whose profession is the study of a certain topic.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team