The tense of a verb shows the time of an event or action.

In the English language, tenses play an important role in sentence formation. The tense refers to the time of action. It is a verb form which does this work. A verb has three forms:

1. Base Form,
2. Past Tense and
3. Past Participle. (Please refer chapter on verbs for verb forms)

The time of action may be in :
1. Present is called Present Tense
2. Past is called Past Tense
3. Future is called Future Tense
4. Conditional is Called Conditional Tense.

Let us understand in brief, how they work.

	Present Tense:
	Examples Simple Present Tense • Children go to school. Present Continuous Tense • Children are going to school. Present Perfect Tense • Children have gone to school. Present Perfect Continuous Tense • Children have been going to school.

	Past Tense:
	Examples Simple Past Tense • Children went to school. Past Continuous Tense • Children were going to school. Past Perfect Tense • Children had gone to school. Past Perfect Continuous Tense • Children had been going to school.

	Future Tense:
	Examples Simple Future Tense • Children will go to school. Future Continuous Tense • Children will be going to school. Future Perfect Tense • Children will have gone to school. Future Perfect Continuous Tense • Children will have been going to school.

	Conditional Tense:
	Examples Conditional Sentences • If he takes taxi, he can reach in time. Present Conditional Tense • If he had come in time, we would have gone to see a movie.