English Grammar Workbook For Dummies, UK Edition E-Book

Nuala O'Sullivan

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 521

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

English Grammar Workbook For Dummies, UK Edition is grammar First Aid for anyone wanting to perfect their English and develop the practical skills needed to write and speak correctly. Each chapter focuses on key grammatical principles, with easy-to-follow theory and examples as well as practice questions and explanations. From verbs, prepositions and tenses, to style, expressions and tricky word traps, this hands-on workbook is essential for both beginners looking to learn and practise the basics of English grammar, and those who want to brush up skills they already have - quickly, easily, and with confidence. 

English Grammar Workbook For Dummies, UK Edition covers:

Part I: Laying the Groundwork: Grammar Basics      
Chapter 1: Placing the Proper Verb in the Proper Place              
Chapter 2: Matchmaker, Make Me a Match: Pairing Subjects and Verbs Correctly           
Chapter 3: Who Is She, and What Is It? The Lowdown on Pronouns
Chapter 4: Finishing What You Start: Writing Complete Sentences        

Part II: Mastering Mechanics          
Chapter 5: Exercising Comma Sense
Chapter 6: Made You Look! Punctuation Marks That Demand Attention           
Chapter 7: One Small Mark, a Whole New Meaning: Apostrophes         
Chapter 8: "Let Me Speak!" Quotation Marks
Chapter 9: Hitting the Big Time: Capital Letters         

Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use  
Chapter 10: The Case of It (And Other Pronouns)      
Chapter 11: Choosing the Best Pronoun for a Tricky Sentence
Chapter 12: Travelling in Time: Tricky Verb-Tense Situations 
Chapter 13: Are You and Your Verbs in the Right Mood?

Part IV: All You Need to Know about Descriptions and Comparisons   
Chapter 14: Writing Good or Well: Adjectives and Adverbs
Chapter 15: Going on Location: Placing Descriptions Correctly
Chapter 16: For Better or Worse: Forming Comparisons           
Chapter 17: Apples and Oranges: Improper Comparisons        

Part V: Writing with Style  
Chapter 18: Keeping Your Balance               
Chapter 19: Spicing Up and Trimming Down Your Sentences  
Chapter 20: Steering Clear of Tricky Word Traps

Part VI: The Part of Tens
Chapter 21: Ten Over-corrections
Chapter 22: Ten Errors to Avoid at All Cost

Leseprobe

English Grammar Workbook For Dummies,® 2nd Edition

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organised

Part I: Laying the Foundations: Grammar Basics

Part II: Mastering Mechanics

Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use

Part IV: All You Need to Know about Descriptions and Comparisons

Part V: Writing with Style

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Laying the Foundations: Grammar Basics

Chapter 1: Placing the Proper Verb in the Proper Place

Choosing Past, Present or Future

Shining a Light on Perfect Tenses

Navigating the Irregular Forms

Mastering the Two Most Common Irregulars: Be and Have

Getting By with a Little Help from Some Other Verbs

Extra Practice with Verbs

Answers to Problems on Verbs and Verb Tenses

Chapter 2: Matchmaker, Make Me a Match: Pairing Subjects and Verbs Correctly

Coping When One Just Isn’t Enough: Plural Nouns

Bringing Together Subjects and Verbs

Taming the Terrible Twos: Difficult Subjects to Match with Verbs

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Hitching Subjects and Verbs

Answers to Subject and Verb Pairing Problems

Chapter 3: Who Is She, and What Is It? The Lowdown on Pronouns

Separating Singular and Plural Pronouns

Taking Possession of the Right Pronoun

Discovering that it’s All in the Details: Possessives versus Contractions

Avoiding Double Meanings

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Basic Pronouns

Answers to Pronoun Problems

Chapter 4: Finishing What You Start: Writing Complete Sentences

Seeking Out the Subject/Verb Pair

Checking for Complete Thoughts

Going for Flow: Joining Sentences Correctly

Finishing with Flair: Choosing Endmarks

Complete or Incomplete? That Is the Question

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Complete Sentences

Answers to Complete Sentence Problems

Part II: Mastering Mechanics

Chapter 5: Exercising Comma Sense

Making a List and Checking It Twice

You Talkin’ to Me? Direct Address

Dating and Addressing

Introducing (and Interrupting) with the Comma

Setting Off Descriptions

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Commas

Answers to Comma Problems

Chapter 6: Made You Look! Punctuation Marks That Demand Attention

Connectors and Dividers: Hyphens

Just Dashing Through

Sorting Out Semicolons

Placing Colons

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Hyphens, Dashes, Colons, and Semicolons

Answers to Punctuation Problems

Chapter 7: One Small Mark, a Whole New Meaning: Apostrophes

Putting Words on a Diet: Contractions

Taking Possession

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Apostrophes

Answers to Apostrophe Problems

Chapter 8: ‘Let Me Speak!’ Quotation Marks

Giving Written Words a Voice: Punctuating Direct Quotations

Embedding One Quotation inside Another

Punctuating Titles

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Quotation Marks

Answers to Quotation Problems

Chapter 9: Hitting the Big Time: Capital Letters

Bowing to Convention and Etiquette: People’s Names and Titles

Entering the Worlds of Business and Education

Capitalising Titles of Literary and Media Works

Placing Geographical Capitals

Tackling Abbreviations: AM or p.m.?

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Capital Letters

Answers to Capitalisation Problems

Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use

Chapter 10: The Case of It (And Other Pronouns)

Meeting the Subject at Hand and the Object of My Affection

Choosing Between ‘Who’ and ‘Whom’

Linking Up with Pronouns in ‘To Be’ Sentences

Discovering Whether You’re Talking to Me or I: Pronouns as Objects of Prepositions

Matching Possessive Pronouns to ‘-ing’ Nouns

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Pronoun Case

Answers to Pronoun Case Problems

Chapter 11: Choosing the Best Pronoun for a Tricky Sentence

Nodding in Agreement: Pronouns and Possessives Come Head to Head

Tackling Pronouns for Companies and Organisations

Decoding Who, That and Which

Getting Down to Specifics: Avoiding Improper Pronoun References

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Tricky Pronoun Situations

Answers to Advanced Pronoun Problems

Chapter 12: Travelling in Time: Tricky Verb Tense Situations

Telling Tales of the Past

Communicating When You’re Stuck in the Present

Tackling the Timeline: Verbals to the Rescue

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Verb Tenses

Answers to Advanced Verb Tense Problems

Chapter 13: Getting Your Verbs in the Right Mood

Stating the Obvious: Indicative Mood

Taking Command: Imperative Mood

Telling Lies or Being Passive: Subjunctive Mood

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Moody Verbs

Answers to Verb Mood Problems

Part IV: All You Need to Know about Descriptions and Comparisons

Chapter 14: Writing Good or Well: Adjectives, Adverbs and Articles

Distinguishing Between Adjectives and Adverbs

Asking How It’s Going: Choosing Between Good/Well and Bad/Badly

Mastering the Art of Articles

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Descriptors

Answers to Adjective and Adverb Problems

Chapter 15: Going on Location: Placing Descriptions Correctly

Situating ‘Even’, ‘Only’ and Similar Words: Little Words Mean a Lot

Avoiding Misplaced Descriptions: It Must Be Here Somewhere!

Hanging off a Cliff: Dangling Descriptions

Being Dazed and Confused: Vague Descriptions

Brain Strain: Extra Practice Placing Descriptions

Answers to Description Placement Problems

Chapter 16: Forming Comparisons: For Better or Worse

Visiting the -ER (and the -EST): Creating Comparisons

Going from Bad to Worse (and Good to Better): Irregular Comparisons

Using Words That Are Incomparable (Like You!)

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Bad Comparisons

Answers to Comparison Problems

Chapter 17: Apples and Oranges: Improper Comparisons

Ensuring That You Complete Comparisons: No One Likes to Feel Incomplete

Being Smarter Than Yourself: Illogical Comparisons

Doubling Up Trouble: A Sentence Containing More Than One Comparison

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Improper Comparisons

Answers to Complicated Comparison Problems

Part V: Writing with Style

Chapter 18: Practising Parallel Structure

Understanding When Geometry Invades English: Parallelism Basics

Avoiding Unnecessary Shifts in Tense, Person and Voice

Matchmaking – The Basics: Either/Or, Not Only/But Also and Similar Pairs

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Parallels

Answers to Parallelism Problems

Chapter 19: Spicing Up and Trimming Down Your Sentences

Beginning with a Bang: Adding Introductory Elements

Smoothing Out Choppy Sentences

Being Awkward but Interesting: Reversed Sentence Patterns

Shedding and Eliminating Redundancy

Brain Strain: Extra Practice Honing Your Sentences

Answers to Sentence Improvement Problems

Chapter 20: Steering Clear of Tricky Word Traps

Separating Almost-Twins: Commonly Confused Words

Comparing Quantities without Numbers

Bursting Your Bubble: Sorry, but Some Common Expressions Are Wrong

Tackling Verbs That Give You a Headache

Combining Rightfully Independent Words

Brain Strain: Extra Practice with Tricky Words

Answers to Tricky Word Problems

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 21: Ten Overcorrections

Substituting ‘Whom’ for ‘Who’

Inserting Unnecessary ‘Hads’

Repeating Again and Again

Sending ‘I’ to Do a ‘Me’ Job

Speaking or Writing Passively

Making Sentence Structure Too Complicated

Letting Descriptions Dangle

Becoming Allergic to ‘They’ and ‘Their’

Being Semi-Attached to Semicolons

Not Knowing When Enough Is Enough

Chapter 22: Ten Errors to Avoid at All Costs

Writing Incomplete Sentences

Letting Sentences Run On and On

Forgetting to Capitalise ‘I’

Being Stingy with Quotation Marks

Using Pronouns Incorrectly

Placing New Words in the Wrong Context

Letting Slang Seep into Your Speech

Forgetting to Proofread

Relying on Computer Checks for Grammar and Spelling

Repeating Yourself

Appendix: Your Final Challenge

Exercise One

Exercise Two

Exercise Three

Exercise Four

Answers to Exercise One

Answers to Exercise Two

Answers to Exercise Three

Answers to Exercise Four

English Grammar Workbook For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

By Nuala O’Sullivan and Geraldine Woods

English Grammar Workbook For Dummies®

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, LtdThe AtriumSouthern GateChichesterWest SussexPO19 8SQEngland

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Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex

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About the Authors

Nuala O’Sullivan graduated from Edinburgh University and later received her Certificate and Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults. She taught English as a foreign language for more than 10 years in Britain, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. She trained teachers in the University of Cambridge Certificate in Teaching English Language to Adults (CELTA) in Thailand and the USA. In 2005, Nuala devised and created The Flatmates for the BBC. This award-winning, online soap opera was designed specifically for English language learners. She wrote and produced weekly episodes of the soap for four years. She is also the author of Teaching English in South-East Asia.

Geraldine Woods began her education when teachers still supplied ink wells to their students. She credits her 35-year career as an English teacher to a set of ultra-strict nuns armed with thick grammar books. She lives in New York City, where with great difficulty she refrains from correcting signs containing messages such as ‘Bagel’s for sale.’ She is the author of more than 40 books, including English Grammar For Dummies.

Dedication

From Nuala: For Natalie, with all my love. And in memory of Dima Kostenko (1966–2009), a gentle man and much-missed BBC Learning English colleague.

From Geraldine: For the students who labour (and occasionally smile) in the grammar portion of my English classes.

Authors’ Acknowledgments

From Nuala: I’d like to thank the students, teachers, trainers and radio and online producers I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of working with over the years.

Thanks to all at Wiley who helped bring this book to life, especially Rachael Chilvers, Nicole Hermitage and Andy Finch.

From Geraldine: I owe thanks to my colleagues at the Horace Mann School, who are always willing to discuss the finer points of grammar. I appreciate the work of Kristin DeMint, Sarah Faulkner and Neil Johnson. I also appreciate the efforts of Lisa Queen, my agent, and of Roxanne Cerda and Kathy Cox.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Rachael Chilvers

Content Editor: Jo Theedom

Commissioning Editor: Nicole Hermitage

Production Manager: Daniel Mersey

Copyeditor: Andy Finch

Cover Photos: © Corbis Premium RF / Alamy

Cartoons: Ed McLachlan

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Lynsey Stanford

Layout and Graphics: Claudia Bell, Carl Byers, Christin Swinford, and Christine Williams

Indexer: Claudia Bourbeau

Introduction

Good grammar pays. No, we’re not making a sentimental statement about the importance of a job well done or the satisfaction of learning for its own sake, although we believe in both these values. We’re talking about cold, hard cash. Don’t believe us? Fine. Try this little test: the next time you go to the cinema, tear yourself away from the story for a moment and concentrate on the dialogue. The chances are that the characters who have fancy jobs or piles of cash sound different from those who don’t.

We’re not making a value judgement here; we’re just describing reality. Proper or standard English, written or spoken, tends to be associated with the upper social or economic classes. Toning up your grammar muscles doesn’t guarantee your entry into the Bill Gates income bracket, but poor grammar may make fighting your way in that much harder.

Another payoff of good grammar is doing better at school, college or university. Teachers always look more favourably on nicely written, grammatically correct sentences.

The good news is that you don’t have to spend a lifetime improving your English. Ten minutes here, ten minutes there, and before you know it, your grammar muscles are toned to fighting strength. This book is the equivalent of a gym membership for your writing and speaking skills. Like any good gym, it doesn’t waste your time with lectures on the physiology of flat abs. Instead, it sends you right to the mat and sets you up with the exercises that actually do the job.

About This Book

English Grammar Workbook For Dummies doesn’t concentrate on what English teachers (yes, we admit it, we’re teachers!) call descriptive grammar – the kind where you circle all the nouns and draw little triangles around the prepositions. A closely guarded English-teacher secret is that you don’t need to know any of that terminology (well, hardly any) to master grammar. Instead, this book concentrates on functional grammar – what goes where in real-life speech and writing.

Each chapter begins with a quick explanation of the rules (don’t smoke, don’t stick your chewing gum under the table, make sure that your sentences are complete – that kind of thing). We start off telling you what’s right and wrong in standard English usage. Next, we give you an example and then hit you with ten or so quick questions. Just so you know that we’re not wasting your time, in every chapter we give you a sample from real-life English (albeit in a slightly weird situation, which we offer merely for your delectation and amusement), so you can see how proper grammar aids communication.

After filling in the blanks, you can check your answers at the end of the chapter. In English Grammar Workbook For Dummies, we also tell you why a particular choice is correct, not for the sake of discovering a set of rules but to help you make the right decision next time – when you’re deciding between their and they’re or went and had gone, for example. As teachers for more decades than we care to count, we believe that if you truly understand the logic of grammar – and most rules do rest upon a logical base – you become a better, more precise communicator.

If you have English as your second language, we want to offer you a special welcome. You’ve probably picked up quite a bit of vocabulary and grammar already, but this book lets you practise the little things – the best word choice for a particular sentence, the proper way to create a plural and so on. This book moves you beyond mere comprehension towards mastery.

Conventions Used in This Book

To make your practice as easy as possible, we use certain conventions throughout this book so that from chapter to chapter or section to section you’re not wondering what in the world is going on. Here are a few conventions to note:

As in all For Dummies titles, we use an informal, chatty style throughout this book. Please bear in mind, however, that such an approach may not be the right tone in more formal writing, such as when submitting a report to your boss or an essay to your teacher. As we mention a few times in the text, we’re exploring standard English, which is why we make occasional references to ‘your boss’, ‘your teacher’ and so on to steer you towards correct writing in formal situations.

At the end of each chapter is an ‘Answers’ section, which covers all the exercises in that chapter. You can find the answers by thumbing through the book until you come to the pages with the grey border.

The last exercise in each chapter is comprehensive and takes you to the next level, so that you can check your understanding of the material in that chapter and sharpen your editing skills. We provide a figure containing a piece of writing filled with errors. You can find the corrections to these errors, along with an amended figure, in the ‘Answers’ section. The numbers in the corrected figure correspond with the numbered explanations in the text. Also, we supply an Appendix devoted entirely to giving you comprehensive practice of all the topics covered in this workbook.

We promise to keep the grammar jargon to a minimum in this workbook, but we have to include a couple of terms from Grammarland. If you struggle with a definition, run away as fast as you can and try the sample question instead. If you can get the point without remembering the grammatical term, you win a gold star. Likewise, feel free to skip the explanation of any question that you get right, unless of course you want to gloat. In that case read the explanation while crowing, ‘Well of course! I knew that.’

Foolish Assumptions

We assume that you fall into one or more of these categories:

You know some English but want to improve your skills.

You aspire to a better job.

You feel a bit insecure about your language skills and want to communicate with more confidence.

You’re discovering how to speak and write English fluently.

In addition, we make two more general assumptions about you. First, you have a busy life with very little time to waste on unnecessary frills. With this important fact in mind, we try to keep the explanations in this book clear, simple and short, so you can dive right in and practise. We leave the fancy grammar terms – gerunds, indicativemood and the like – by the wayside, where in our humble opinion they belong. We don’t want to clutter up your brain; we just want to give you what you need to know to speak and write standard English. For further explanation on terms, pick up a copy of the companion book, English Grammar For Dummies (also published by Wiley).

Second, we assume that you hate the boring, schoolbook style. You prefer not to yawn as you read. No problem! Everyone glazes over when faced with sentences such as, ‘The administrative council approved the new water-purification project outlined in by-law 78-451 by a margin of three votes to two.’ For our questions we create some strange little creatures living in peculiar little worlds. You may think that they’re there just to make you smile, but no. Our cunning plan is to slip in some grammar practice while you’re distracted by the silly tales.

How This Book Is Organised

Life gets harder as you go along, doesn’t it? So, too, does this book. Parts I and II concentrate on the basics – popping the right verbs into each sentence, forming singulars and plurals, creating complete sentences and so on. Part III moves up a notch to the pickier stuff, not exactly to world ranking but definitely the county-championship level. In Parts III and IV, you get to try your hand at the most annoying problems presented by pronouns (those pesky little words such as I, me, theirs, whomever among others), advanced verb problems and comparisons. Part V is completely practical, polishing up your writing style and explaining some common word traps into which you may fall. Now for more detail.

Part I: Laying the Foundations: Grammar Basics

In this part we take you through the building blocks – verbs (words that express action or state of being) and subjects (who or what you’re talking about) – with a quick side trip into basic pronouns (I, he, her and so on). We show you how to create complete sentences. In this part you practise choosing the correct verb tense in straightforward sentences and find out all you need to know about singular and plural forms.

Part II: Mastering Mechanics

This part’s devoted to two little things that can make or break your writing: punctuation and capital letters. If you’re unsure whether to head North or north or if you want to know where a comma belongs, this part’s for you.

Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use

This part tackles all the fun stuff associated with pronouns, including the reason why everyone must bring their lunch is still a controversial statement, as far as grammar-geeks are concerned. Part III also solves your time problems, helping you to decipher the shades of difference in verb tense (wrote? had written?) and voice (not alto or soprano, but active or passive).

Part IV: All You Need to Know about Descriptions and Comparisons

Part IV puts you through your paces in selecting the best descriptive words (such as good or well?). We also weed out illogical or vague comparisons.

Part V: Writing with Style

Part V allows you to stop cracking your knuckles and twiddling your pen, and start to compete with the world-class writers. You face the toughest grammatical situations, plus exercises that address fluidity and variety. We also throw in some misunderstood words (imply and infer, to name just two) and give you practice in using them properly.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Here you find ten ways in which people trying to be hyper-correct end up being super-wrong. You can also find out about ten errors that can ruin your chances of promotion or lower the mark you get for an essay. In the Appendix we give you a Final Challenge – four documents designed to test your grammar skills to their limit.

Icons Used in This Book

Icons are the cute little drawings that attract your gaze and alert you to key points or pitfalls. In English Grammar Workbook For Dummies, we use four icons.

Have you ever been a tourist lost in a foreign city, desperate for a local to show you the ropes? The Tip icon is the equivalent of a friendly guide whispering in your ear, ‘Psst! Want the inside story to make your life easier?’

If you’re on a hunt for treasure, the map you’re following needs to warn you, ‘Here be pirates!’ The Warning icon tells you where the booby traps are so you can turn round and run like mad from them.

Theory doesn’t go very far when you’re working on grammar. You have to see the language in action, so to speak. The Practice icon alerts you to an example and a set of exercises so you can practise what you’ve just finished reading about.

Under the Remember icon, we highlight important points for you to bear in mind.

Where to Go from Here

To the fridge for a snack. Just kidding. Now that you know what’s where, turn to the section that best meets your needs. If you’re not sure what’s going to benefit you most, take a moment to think about what bothers you. What parts of writing or speaking make you pause for a lengthy head scratch? Do you have trouble picking the right verb tense? Is finding the right word a cinch but deciding whether to use a comma or not a nightmare? Do you go out of your way to avoid sentences containing who because you never know when to opt for whom?

After a little grammatical reconnaissance, select the sections of this book that meet your needs. Use the ‘How This Book Is Organised’ section earlier in this introduction, the comprehensive table of contents and the index to find more detail about what’s where. Turn to the exercises that address your issues and use the rest to line the budgie’s cage if you want! Of course, if you decide to read every single word, we’re going to be secretly chuffed. But if you pick and choose from the different sections of English Grammar Workbook For Dummies, we’re still going to be chuffed anyway. Talk about a win-win situation!

If you aren’t sure whether a particular topic is a problem, no problem! Cast your eyes over the explanation and sample question. Try a couple of sentences and check your answers. If you glide through easily enough and you understand the answers, move on. If you stub your toe, go back and do a few more questions until the grammar rule becomes clear (and your foot stops hurting).

When you understand each concept separately you may still have trouble putting all the elements together correctly. That’s when the comprehensive exercise at the end of each chapter comes into its own. This is a short piece of text that’s littered with mistakes for you to find and correct. Now you get to be teacher – red pen at the ready!

One more thing: don’t try to do everything at the same time. Do short, sharp, ten-minute bursts of grammar activity. In this way, more is going to stick with you, and you have the added bonus of more time to get on with the rest of your life.

Part I

Laying the Foundations: Grammar Basics

In this part . . .

If you’ve ever built a house with bricks or even a tower with playing cards, you know that the whole thing is likely to fall down unless it’s sitting on top of a solid foundation. This part gives you the stuff you need to lay the best foundation for your writing. Chapter 1 takes you through verbs, explaining how to select the best verb for present, past and future situations. In the same chapter, you find the most popular irregular verbs and everything you need to know about the ever-helpful helping verbs. Chapter 2 moves inside the house, to the kitchen, and sorts your verbs into singular and plural piles and helps you match each verb to the correct subject. Then you’re ready to pair pronouns and nouns (Chapter 3) and to distinguish complete from incomplete or too-long sentences (Chapter 4). Ready? We promise we won’t let the grammar roof fall on your head!

Chapter 1

Placing the Proper Verb in the Proper Place

In This Chapter

Examining the past, present and future tenses

Practising the perfect tenses

Navigating the irregular forms

Handling auxiliary verbs

Verbs can be as short as two letters and as long as several words; they communicate action or a state of being. Plus, without even looking at a watch, a verb can tell you the time. Unfortunately, that handy little time-keeping function can be confusing.

In this chapter, we look at basic time questions. No, not ‘You’re late again because. . . ?’, but ‘Which verb do I need to show what’s completed, not yet begun or going on right now?’ We look at the basic tenses (past, present and future) and the perfect tenses, which are anything but perfect. We also work on irregular and auxiliary verbs.

Choosing Past, Present or Future

Verbs indicate time using a quality known as tense. Before you reach for a tranquilliser, here’s a rundown of the three basic tenses: present, past and future. Each tense has two forms: plain or simple (called by its basic time designation) and progressive (the -ing form of a verb). The progressive places a little more emphasis on process or action that spans a time period, and the present progressive may reach into the future. In many sentences, plain and progressive verbs may be used interchangeably. Here’s a taste of each type:

The past tense tells you what happened at a specific time in the past or describes a pattern of behaviour in the past. In the sentence ‘Diane painted a skull on her bike’, painted is a past tense verb describing a single past action. In ‘During the Biker Festival, Diane was drinking more than usual’, wasdrinking is a verb in the past progressive tense describing an action that recurred over a period of time – the duration of the festival.

The present tense tells you what’s going on right now or, more generally speaking, what action is recurring. The present tense also touches the future. In the sentence ‘Diane rides to work’, rides is a present tense verb and riding to work is something that Diane does regularly – she has done it for some time and you expect her to go on doing it in the future. In ‘Diane is polishing her bike’, the verb ispolishing is in the present progressive tense and polishing her bike is what Diane is doing right now. But in ‘Diane is riding her bike to Cornwall on Friday night’, the present progressive verb is riding indicates that this action is something that Diane is going to do in the future. This double use of the present progressive as a present or future time indicator is just one of the interesting features of English!

The future tense moves into fortune-telling. The verb in ‘Diane will give Grace a ride on her new bike’ is willgive, which is in the future tense. In ‘Diane will be showing off her new bike for months’, willbeshowing off is in the future progressive tense.

Okay, time to try out a sample problem. The infinitive (the grandma of each verb family) follows every sentence. Stay in that family when you fill in the blank, choosing the correct tense. When you’re finished with this example, try the practice problems that follow.

Q. Clothes have always been important to David. He remembers quite clearly the day in 1976 he _______________ his first pair of platform boots. (