Change of Tense, Change of Meaning
Below we have taken one sentence and put it into different tenses, so you can see how the meaning changes.
| Tense | Example | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Present Simple | I play tennis every day. | Here you want to say that it happens regularly. |
| Present Continuous | I‘m playing tennis now. | Here you want to say that it is happening at the moment. |
| Past Simple | I played tennis yesterday. | You did it yesterday, it is finished and in the past. |
| Past Continuous | I was playing tennis the whole weekend. | You were doing it in the past for an extended period of time. |
| Present Perfect Simple | I have just played tennis. | You have just finished it and there is a connection to the present – maybe your hot and sweaty. |
| Present Perfect Continuous | I have been playing tennis for 3 hours. | You want to say how long you have been doing it. You started in the past and it continues up to the present. |
| Past Perfect Simple | I had played tennis before John arrived. | The two actions are related to each other: you played tennis and after that John arrived. |
| Past Perfect Continuous | I had been playing tennis for 3 hours when John arrived. | Here you want to point out how long you had been doing it before the John arrived. |
| will-future | I will/shall play tennis next Saturday. | This is a prediction of what you will do but it is not certain. |
| going to-future | I‘m going to play tennis tomorrow. | This is a plan you have made. |
| Future Continuous | I will/shall be playing tennis next Saturday. | You do it every Saturday (as usual) |
| Future Perfect Simple | I will/shall have played tennis by tomorrow. | You will have done it before tomorrow. |
| Future Perfect Continuous | I will/shall have been playing for 10 years in summer. | How long you have been playing from the past up to a point in the future. |
| Conditional Simple |
I would play tennis. | There is a possibility you will play but it depends on other factors. |
| Conditional Continuous |
I would be playing tennis. | There is a possibility you will play but it depends on other factors. Here you concentrate more on the duration of the action. |
| Conditional Perfect Simple |
I would have played tennis. | You wanted to play at some time in the past but did not. |
| Conditional Perfect Continuous |
I would have been playing tennis. | You wanted to play at some time in the past but did not. Here you concentrate on the duration of playing (tennis). |