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IWE Study | College Planning & Learning Centre & Study Tours

Past or Present Tense?

11/26/2018

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Bill Situ

English and ESL Instructor

In English, tenses indicate the time or state of a particular action. It is always important to always use proper tenses because they help the reader understand what happens at a particular time.

The English language has 12 different tenses in total. The two most common ones are the past and present tenses:

     I live in Vancouver. (Present tense)

     I lived in Vancouver. (Past tense)

The meanings of these tenses are seemingly very self-explanatory, yet many students commonly misuse these tenses in academic writing assignments.

Whenever writing about a historical event or describing any past action, always use the past tense:

     The Second World War began in 1939 and ended in 1945.

     The high temperatures caused the pressure in the container to increase.


On the other hand, when describing events in a fictional work (e.g. a book or a film) or quoting from one, verbs should be in the present tense:

     Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities opens with the line, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."
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    Bill Situ

    Bill Situ is an instructor at IWE Study and Consulting Inc. He specializes in English and ESL.

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