COMPOUND TENSES

Compound tenses

What Are Simple Tenses in English? Events can occur either in the past, in the future or right now, in the present. A verb’s tense will help us figure out at what time the action of the verb took place or will take place. You may already be familiar with the English simple tenses. These are often the first ones that English language learners encounter.

In English we have two groups of tenses: Simple tenses and Compound tenses

What Are Compound Tenses in English?

Compound tenses are basically modifications to the simple tenses that give more specific information about when the action occurred, started or completed. Think of the simple tenses as a starter deck of a card game, and the compound tenses as the new and latest expansion pack. As you will see below, a compound tense also always requires the auxiliary verb “to have” or “to be” in addition to the action verb.