by Phil Williams | May 9, 2019 | General English, Grammar
I was recently asked for some basic rules regarding how we can combine two different tenses in one sentence – for example which tenses can or cannot be used together. I’m not aware a comparison of the tenses being readily available in this way; my instinct is that...
by Phil Williams | May 17, 2018 | General English
I recently had a question through this website but the return email didn’t work, so I’ve posted my answer in the hope that the reader sees it! It relates to spotting the difference between the past simple and the passive voice – specifically, how we...
by Phil Williams | Aug 8, 2017 | Grammar, Writing skills
When we write a rule in a past tense narrative, should it still be in the present simple tense? This was an excellent question raised by a reader, from a fairly unexpected source – this Christmas reading exercise. It contains the phrase “everyone knew how...
by Phil Williams | Apr 28, 2016 | Definitions, Exercises, Grammar
Negative simple tenses are formed using either do, does, did, will or the verb to be and not, followed by the bare infinitive. Below is a group of exercises to test this understanding – using the information provides, form complete negative simple sentences. The...
by Phil Williams | Nov 19, 2015 | Grammar
I was recently contacted with a question about my Mixed Tenses Exercise, which demonstrates that different tenses can fit into the same sentence structure. The question came from the past simple use in the first example, I played tennis every Tuesday this month. In a...