Tenses show when the verb’s action takes place. The three simple tenses are the present tense, the past tense, and the future tense.
| PRESENT TENSE | I ask, write |
| PAST TENSE | I asked, wrote |
| FUTURE TENSE | I will ask, will write |
More complex aspects of time are expressed through progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive forms of the simple tenses.
| PRESENT PROGRESSIVE | she is asking, is writing |
| PAST PROGRESSIVE | she was asking, was writing |
| FUTURE PROGRESSIVE | she will be asking, will be writing |
| PRESENT PERFECT | she has asked, has written |
| PAST PERFECT | she had asked, had written |
| FUTURE PERFECT | she will have asked, will have written |
| PRESENT PERFECT PROGRESSIVE | she has been asking, has been writing |
| PAST PERFECT PROGRESSIVE | she had been asking, had been writing |
| FUTURE PERFECT PROGRESSIVE | she will have been asking, will have been writing |
The simple tenses locate an action only within the three basic time frames of present, past, and future. Progressive forms express continuing actions; perfect forms express completed actions; perfect progressive forms express actions that continue up to some point in the present, past, or future.