Grammatical tense
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
Tense is a system of verb forms. It's main job is to show when the verb happens. There are three main tenses:
- Past Tense (Things that were true before the words are spoken or written)
- Present Tense (Things that are true at the time the words are spoken or written, are generally true, or for some languages will be true in the future)
- Future Tense (Things that will or might be true after the words are spoken or written)
Some languages have all three tenses, some have only two, and some have no tenses at all. English and Japanese for example have only two common tenses: past and present. Chinese and Indonesian verbs do not show tense. Instead they use other words in the sentence to show when the verb happens.
[change] Popular ideas of tense
Many people think that tense means any verb form or even certain combinations of auxiliary verbs and other verbs. For example, many people say that "will go" is future tense or that "He is loved by many" is passive tense. This is not technically correct.
