The Present Tense

 

The minimum you need to create a sentence in English is a noun (person, place, or thing) and a verb (the action of the sentence).  Prepared below is all you need to create a simple sentence in English. 

 

Subject Pronoun + Verb Base + Verb Ending

 

  1. Subject Pronouns are I, You, He, She, It, We, You (plural), and They.

 

  1. The verb base is “to” followed by the simple present tense verb.  For example: To Eat.

 

  1. The verb ending is the change that is made to the verb.  For example:  He + To Eat = He Eats.

 

Present Tense Conjugation Chart (To Eat)

(I) Eat

(We) Eat

(You) Eat

(You plural) Eat

(He, She, It) Eats

(They) Eat

 

We use the present tense to discuss things that are happening today or that you do commonly now.  If a person says: “I eat spaghetti” it will be understood as I eat spaghetti often.   Eating spaghetti is understood to be a common action that we do. 

 

When using the present tense we will remove the “to” from the verb base “to eat” and place it after the pronouns I, You, We, and They.

 

I eat

You eat

We eat

They eat

 

When the verb follows the third person (He, She, It) we will remove the “to” and add an s to the verb.

                                    He (to eat) > He eats

 

If the verb ends with a “y” and follows two consonants (cry) we will remove the y and add -ies (cries).  Examples of these words are dry, try, fly, and comply.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Change the verb to fit in the following sentences:

 

  1. I (to sit) __ on the couch.

 

  1. My brother (to light) ____________ the fire in the fireplace.

 

  1. My sister (to use) _______________ the telephone.

 

  1. We (to put) _____________ drinks on the coffee table.

 

  1. They (to cover) ____________ our floor with carpet.

 

  1. She (to play) _______________ the guitar.

 

  1. I (to turn on) _____________ the VCR to watch the movie.

 

  1. He (to look) ___________ at the picture on the wall.

 

  1. We (to play) _____________ on the computer all night.

 

  1. You (to search) _______________ the phone book for Johns phone number.

 

Write the answers to the following questions:

 

What do you do at work?

            I write stories.

 

What is your teacher doing right now?

 

 

What are you doing right now?

 

 

What do you do at school?

 

 

What do you do with a sandwich?

 

 

What do you do with a radio?

 

 

What do you do with a video?

 

 

What do you do with money?

 

 

Do the following exercise.

Make a schedule of your day starting with 6:00am until you go to bed.  What do you do each hour?

 

i.e. 6:00 am I wake up

      7:00 am I go to school