Present or past tense

PRESENT TENSE. 

The present tense is used to talk about:

• something that is true in the present:

I’m nineteen years old.
He lives in London.
I’m a student.

• something that happens again and again in the present:

I play football every weekend.

We use words like sometimes, often. always, and never (adverbs of frequency) with the present tense:

I sometimes go to the cinema.
She never plays football.

• something that is always true:

The adult human body contains 206 bones.
Light travels at almost 300,000 kilometres per second.

• something that is fixed in the future.

The school term starts next week.
The train leaves at 1945 this evening.
We fly to Paris next week

PAST TENSE. 

The past tense is used to talk about:

• something that happened once in the past:

I met my wife in 1983.
We went to Spain for our holidays.
They got home very late last night.

• something that happened again and again in the past:

When I was a boy I walked a mile to school every day.
We swam a lot while we were on holiday.
They always enjoyed visiting their friends.

• something that was true for some time in the past:

I lived abroad for ten years.
He enjoyed being a student.
She played a lot of tennis when she was younger.

• we often use phrases with ago with the past tense:

I met my wife a long time ago.

VIDEO

Tenses overview