Present perfect continuous: an action still continuing from the past to the present. Past simple: an action that happened in the past. For example: I was washing the car when it rained.
Past continuous: an action that happened at a specific point in the past. For example: I had washed the car before it rained. Past perfect: an action that happened before another event in the past. For example: I had been going to school for a year when it was closed. Past perfect continuous: : an action that happened before a certain time in the past, to show duration. Please click on the infographic to see the timeline in full: I have included a list of example sentences on the timeline, and the most basic rules for each of the tenses below. This timeline can be used in conjunction with my book, The English Tenses, which explains in full detail how each of the tenses is used, and how they can be compared. It can help to view the different time expressions on one timeline, so I have created a diagram to compare all the English tenses, below. These are the most common grammatical forms for expressing time in English. There are 12 basic tenses in the English language.
