English Grammar Drills

132 Verb Phrases
We will now turn to an examination of what the various combinations of time and category
actually mean and how they are used.
Simple category of tenses
In this section we examine the three simple category verbs: simple present, simple past, and
future.
Present tense
One of the most confusing features of the present tense for nonnative speakers is that the presenttense
verb form does not actually mean present time. The two most common uses of the present
tense are for making timeless factual statements and for describing habitual actions.
The present tense is used to state timeless (that is, not bound or limited by time) objective
facts. For example:
In the Fahrenheit scale, water boils at 212 degrees.
This statement is not tied to any moment of time. It is a universal generalization that is valid
forever. Here is another example in which the timeless nature of the factual statement is not so
obvious:
My grandmother lives in a nursing home.
The speaker’s grandmother has not always lived in a nursing home, and at some point in the
future, she will not be living in the nursing home. The use of the present tense signals that for the
foreseeable immediate future, the speaker’s grandmother is expected to stay in a nursing home. If
the speaker had used the present progressive tense:
My grandmother is living in a nursing home.
it would change the meaning completely. The sentence is now tied to the present moment. The
grandmother is in a nursing home now, but there is no implication that she is expected to stay
there indefinitely. Here are more examples of timeless factual statements in the present tense:
Christmas falls on Sunday this year.
The moon and the earth rotate around a common center of gravity.
Cucumbers make my skin itch.
My son lives in Sacramento.