Basic English Grammar Course 1 | Present Simple Tense | Learn and Practice

Hi, everybody.

My name is Esther.

I'm so excited to teach you the present simple tense in today's video.

Now this lesson can be a little difficult,

so I'll do my best to keep it easy and fun for you.

My goal is for you to understand how and when to use this grammar by the end of the video.

Let's get started.

Let's start with the first usage for the present simple tense.

The first usage is pretty easy.

We use it to talk about facts, truths, and generalizations.

Let's look at some examples.

‘The Sun is bright.’

Now that's a fact.

It doesn't change.

Everybody knows that the Sun is bright.

It was bright yesterday.

It's bright today.

And it will be bright tomorrow.

That makes it a fact.

‘Pigs don't fly.’

That's also a fact.

Everybody knows that pigs don't fly.

‘Cats are better than dogs.’

Now this you may not agree with.

This is my truth.

I'm making a generalization about cats and dogs in this example.

And finally, ‘It's cold in winter.’

This really depends on where you live, but for a lot of people, or let's say for

most people, it is cold in the winter,

so that's the truth for some people.

Now let's look back and see what verb I used in the present simple tense.

For the first sentence, we have ‘is’.

I use the ‘be’ verb ‘is’ to talk about the Sun.

In the next sentence, I use the negative of do - ‘do not’

And you'll notice I use the contraction and put these two words together to make it ‘don't’.

‘Cats are better than dogs.’

I use the ‘be’ verb "are" to talk about cats because ‘cats’ is plural.

And finally, it's cold and winter.

Here I use the ‘be’ verb "is" again,

but I use the contraction to combine ‘it’ and ‘is’

and made ‘it’s’.

Let's move on to the next usage.

We also use the present simple tense to talk about habits and routines.

So things and actions that happen regularly.

Let’s look at the examples.

‘I always eat lunch at noon.’

You'll notice I use the adverb ‘always’ because I'm talking about something that I

do regularly.

What is that?

‘Eat lunch at noon.’

So I use the present simple tense.

And here I use the verb ‘eat’.

‘I eat…’

The second example says you play games every day.

Do you see the clue that helps you know that this is something that happens regularly?

It's ‘every day’.

So it's something that happens as a routine or a habit,

so you play games.

The verb here is ‘play’.

‘You play…’

The next example says ‘Seth starts work at 9:00 a.m. daily.’

Again this is something that happens regularly.

‘Seth goes to work at 9:00 a.m.’ every day.

Now you'll notice I put a blue line under the ‘s’ in ‘starts’.

Can you figure out why?

Well remember that when the subject of a sentence is ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’,

we need to add an ‘s’ or ‘es’ to the end of the verb in the present simple tense.

Seth is a ‘he’, so we need to add an ‘s’.

‘Seth starts work at 9:00 a.m. daily.’

And the last example: ‘They study English every Monday.’

Again, ‘every Monday’ means that they do it regularly,

and that's why we use the present simple tense.

‘They study…’.

So as a review, remember we use the present simple tense

to talk about habits and routines that happen regularly.

Let's move on.

We also use the present simple tense with non-continuous verbs.

These are verbs that we don't use in the continuous form,

even if they're happening right now.

They're also called stative verbs.

These are connected with thoughts, opinions, feelings, emotions, and our five senses.

Let's look at these examples.

‘I love my mom.’

The verb here is ‘love’.

That's an emotion, so I use the present simple tense.

‘It smells good.’

‘Smell’ is one of the five senses, so I use the present simple tense.

You'll notice I underlined the ‘s’ because remember the subject is ‘it’.

‘Kelly feels happy.’

This is talking about a feeling.

Again the subject here is ‘Kelly’ which is a ‘she’,

so I added an ‘s’ to the verb.

And finally, ‘They need help.’

We don't say, ‘they are needing help’ even though it's happening right now.

‘Need’ is non-continuous, so we say, ‘they need help’,

so remember you also use the present simple tense with non-continuous verbs,

connected with thoughts, opinions, feelings, emotions, and our five senses.

Let's move on.

Speakers occasionally use the present simple tense to talk about something that will happen

in the near future.

Now this can be a little confusing, but we're not using the future tense,

we're using the present simple tense.

It's possible to do that and it's actually common for people to do that.

Again, for something that will happen in the near future.

Let's look at the examples.

‘I have class at 6 p.m.’

‘6 p.m.’ that's pretty soon, so I can say,

'I have class.'

- the present simple tense.

‘Lisa arrives on Sunday.’

Again the near future, ‘Sunday’.

So I use the present simple tense.

I added an ‘s’ at the end of arrive, because Lisa, the subject, is a ‘she’.

‘We start work soon.’

Again, the near future, ‘soon’,

so I use the present simple verb ‘start’.

And finally, ‘My students come tomorrow.’

This is something that will happen in the near future,

so I use the verb ‘come’.

So remember it is possible, and it is common to use the present simple tense

to talk about something that will happen in the near future.

Let's go to the next usage.

Let's talk about a possible negative usage for the present simple tense,

and that is ‘do not’ and ‘does not’.

The first example says, ‘Mike eats bread.’

I put an ‘s’ at the end of ‘eat’ because the subject is Mike which is a ‘he’.

Now that's not a negative statement.

What happens when I want to turn it into a negative statement?

Well I change it like this - ‘Mike doesn't eat bread.’

So you'll notice that I didn't move the ‘s’ here, okay.

Instead I added ‘doesn't’.

I took ‘does’ and ‘not’ and I turned it into a contraction by combining the two

and making it ‘doesn't’.

So if the subject is ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’,

we use ‘does not’ or ‘doesn't’ to make it negative.

‘You swim well.’

In this case, I don't need to put an ‘s’ at the end of ‘swim’ because the subject

is ‘you’.

If I want to make this sentence negative, I use ‘don't’.

‘You don't swim well.’

I use the contraction for ‘do’ and ‘not’.

I combine them to make ‘don't’,

so if the subject is ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’, or ‘they’,

we use ‘do not’ or ‘don't’.

So to review ‘do not’ and ‘does not’ or ‘don't’ and ‘doesn't’

is a possible usage for the negative for present simple

tense.

Let's continue on.

Now I'll talk about one possible question form for the present simple tense

and that is by using ‘do’ or ‘does’.

So let's look at the example, ‘They live here.’

That's not a question, right?

'They live here’

In order to turn it into a question, it's really simple.

All I have to do is add ‘do’ to the beginning and add a question mark at the end.

‘Do they live here?’

So if the subject is ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’, or ‘they’,

simply add ‘do’ to the beginning of the question.

How about this one, ‘He plays soccer.’

In this statement, the subject is ‘he’ and that's why you should know by now,

I have an ‘s’ at the end of ‘play’.

However, to turn this into a question, I add ‘does’ at the beginning.

‘Does he play soccer?’

What you'll notice here is that I no longer have the ‘s’ at the end of play.

Instead I just used ‘does’ at the beginning,

so for ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’, put ‘does’ at the beginning,

and don't worry about putting an ‘s’ or ‘es’ at the end of the verb.

So to review, one possible way of forming a question for the present simple tense is

using ‘do’ or ‘does’ at the beginning.

Alright let's move on.

Let's start with the first checkup.

In this checkup, I want you to focus on the ‘be’ verbs.

Remember ‘be’ verbs, in the present simple tense, can be ‘is’, ‘am’, or ‘are’.

Take a look at the first sentence.

It says, ‘She _ blank _ at school.’

The subject of this sentence is ‘she’.

What ‘be’ verb do we use for ‘she’?

The correct answer is ‘is’.

Now if you were thinking of the negative, the

correct answer would be ‘she isn't’

or ‘she is not’.

That's correct as well.

And if we want to use a contraction for ‘she is’, we can say ‘she's at school’

For the next one, it says, ‘They _ blank _ twenty years old.’

The subject of this sentence is ‘they’.

What ‘be’ verb do we use for ‘they’?

The correct answer is ‘are’.

For the negative, you can also use ‘aren't’ or ‘are not’.

Also if you want to use the contraction for ‘they are’, you can say,

‘They're 20 years old.’

The next sentence says, ‘His father _ blank_ busy.’

The subject of this sentence is ‘his father’.

What subject pronoun do we use for ‘his father’?

The correct answer is ‘he’.

Remember for ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, the ‘be’ verb is ‘is’.

For the negative, we can say ‘isn't’ or ‘is not’.

And for a contraction, for ‘father’ and ‘is’, we can say, ‘His father's busy.’

Now I want you to try to find the mistakes in this sentence.

‘We isn't good friends.’

Did you find the mistake?

This is the mistake.

The subject is ‘we’ and the ‘be’ verb is ‘are’.

Therefore, the correct answer is ‘we are not’,

or the contraction, ‘we aren't good friends.’

The next sentence.

Can you find the mistake?

‘Are John a teacher?’

Think about the subject of this sentence.

The subject is ‘John’.

And ‘John’, the subject pronoun is ‘he’.

Therefore, we don't use ‘are’, we use ‘is’.

‘Is John a teacher?’

‘Is John a teacher?’

And finally, ‘It am a puppy.’

hmm This one is a big mistake.

The subject here is ‘it’.

What ‘be’ verb do we use for ‘it’?

The correct answer is ‘is’.

So we don't say, ‘It am a puppy,’ we say, ‘It is a puppy.’

Great job guys.

Let's move on to the next checkup.

For the next checkup, I want you to think of some other verbs in the present simple

tense.

Take a look at the first sentence.

‘He __ blank __ …’, I want you to think of the verb, ‘like his dinner’.

What do we do to the verb when the subject is ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’?

Remember we add an ‘s’.

‘He likes his dinner.’

For the negative, you can also say, ‘He doesn't like his dinner.’

The next sentence says, ‘My students __ blank __…’, I want you to think of ‘need’,

‘…books’.

What is the subject pronoun for ‘my students’?

The correct answer is ‘they’.

If the subject is ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’, or ‘they’, in the present simple tense,

we don't change the verb, we keep it as is.

So the correct answer is, ‘My students need books.’

Now for the negative, you can say, ‘My students don't need books.’

The next sentence says, ‘I __ blank __…’, think of the verb,

‘…live in London.’

What do we do here?

Again the subject is ‘I’, therefore we don't change the verb.

The correct answer is, ‘I live in London.’

What's the negative?

‘I don't live in London.’

For the next part, I would like for you to try to find the mistake in the sentence.

‘He doesn't likes math.’

What's the error here?

Well this is a negative.

‘He doesn't…’, that's correct.

However, we do not add an ‘s’ when we have ‘doesn't’ in front of ‘it’.

‘Do he eat candy?’

Here we have a question.

The subject of the sentence is ‘he’.

For ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, when we're making a sentence in the present simple tense,

we use ‘does’ not ‘do’.

So the correct answer is, ‘Does he eat candy?’

And finally, ‘Sam is play computer games.’

There are two present simple verbs here and we can't have that,

so the correct way to fix this sentence is to get rid of the ‘is’.

So take that out and say, ‘Sam plays computer games.’

Add an ‘s’ because the subject is ‘Sam’ which is a ‘he’.

Great job!

Let's move on to the next practice.

For this next practice, we're taking a look at routines.

Remember the present simple tense can be used to describe events that happen regularly.

Let's take a look at the first sentence,

‘We _ blank _ the bus every day.’

And I want you to use the verb ‘take’.

Here we see the clue word ‘every day’ which shows that this is a routine.

The subject of the sentence is ‘we’.

In the present simple tense,

remember if the subject is ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’, or ‘they’,

we do not change the verb.

Therefore the correct answer is, ‘We take the bus every day.’

In the second sentence it says, ‘He _ blank _ to school every morning.’

Again a routine.

The subject here is ‘he’.

What do we do if the subject is ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’?

We add ‘s’ or ‘es’ to the verb.

In this example, the verb is ‘go’, so we have to add ‘es’.

‘He goes to school every morning.’

In the next sentence, it says, ‘Lizzy not play (in parenthesis) tennis.’

Here I want you to think about the negative form.

Lizzy is a ‘she’.

The subject pronoun is ‘she’ so what do we do for the negative?

We say ‘does not’ or the contraction ‘doesn't play tennis’.

We do not add an ‘s’ or ‘es’ to the end of the verb.

Instead we say ‘doesn't’ or ‘does not’.

Now I want you to find a mistake in the next sentence.

‘They watches TV at night.’

Can you figure out what's wrong with the sentence?

The subject is ‘they’.

Therefore, remember, we do not change the verb.

We say ‘watch’.

‘They watch TV at night’.

In the next sentence, or question, it says, ‘Does he plays soccer every week?’

The subject of the sentence is ‘he’.

To make a sentence, putting ‘does’ at the beginning is okay,

However, we don't put an ‘s’ at the end of ‘play’.

Therefore, the correct answer is to simply say,

‘Does he play soccer every week?’

And finally, ‘He always forget his book.’

In this case, the subject is ‘he’.

Remember, again, for he/she/it we add 's' or 'es' to the end of the verb.

What's the verb in the sentence?

It's ‘forget’.

Therefore we have to say, ‘He always forgets his book.’

Great job.

Let's move on to the next practice.

In this checkup, we'll take a look at how the present simple tense can be used to describe

future events.

Take a look at the first sentence.

It says, ‘The airplane _ blank _ tonight.’

And we're looking at the verb ‘leave’.

What is the subject of the sentence?

The correct answer is ‘airplane’.

What subject pronoun do we use for ‘airplane’?

It's ‘it’.

Remember in the present simple tense, for ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, we add an ‘s’

or ‘es’ to the verb.

The verb here is ‘leave’ so we simply add an ‘s’.

The correct answer is, ‘The airplane leaves tonight.’

In the second sentence, it says, ‘Does the movie _blank_ soon?’

And we're using the verb ‘start’.

What is the subject of this sentence?

It’s ‘movie’.

And what subject pronoun do we use for movie?

It’s ‘it’.

So it's like saying, ‘Does it _ blank _ soon?’

Well this is a question, so we already have the correct word in the front - ‘does’.

For he/she/it, when we're asking a question, we use ‘does’.

Now all we have to do is use the same verb in its base form,

so ‘Does the movie start soon?’

We do not add an ‘s’ or ‘es’ here.

Finally, it says, ‘Viki _ blank _ tomorrow.’

The subject of the sentence is ‘Vicki’.

‘Vicki’ is a girl so the subject pronoun is ‘she’.

You'll remember now that for… in this case, we put ‘works’.

w-o-r-k-s ‘works’.

‘Vicki works tomorrow.’

Now let's find the mistakes in the sentence below.

‘He do leave at 3:30 p.m.’

Actually there's only one mistake.

Can you find it?

‘He do leave at 3:30 p.m.’

We do not need the ‘do’ here.

We only use ‘do’ in a question or in the negative form.

But also the subject is ‘he’, so we would use ‘does’.

Either way we don't need this here.

Well now we have the verb ‘leave’ with the subject ‘he’.

Do you know what to do?

We simply change this to ‘leaves’.

Just like we did in the first sentence.

‘He leaves at 3:30 p.m.’

In the next sentence, ‘They don't start school today.’

We have a negative sentence.

‘They don't…’, that's correct.

‘…do not’ is correct.

For subject pronoun ‘they’.

However, in the negative form, we don't have to change the main verb at all.

Therefore, all we will do is say, ‘They don't start school today.’

No ‘s’.

Finally, ‘Does we eat at noon?’

Take a look.

What is the subject or subject pronoun in the sentence?

The correct answer is ‘we’.

Think about the question form.

Do we say ‘do’ or ‘does’ in the question form for the subject pronoun ‘we’?

The correct answer is ‘do’.

We say ‘do’.

So the correct way to say this sentence or question is,

‘Do we eat at noon?’

Great job guys.

You're done with the practice.

Thank you for your hard work.

Let's move on.

Good job guys.

You put in a lot of practice today.

The present simple tense is not easy, and I'm really happy to see how hard you guys

worked on mastering it.

Be sure to check out my other videos and thank you for watching this video.

I'll see you next time.

Bye.