future

Tense Times

Niall O'Donnell 16 Comments

EDIT: I’m reposting this from May last year. Despite the title and featured image, it has nothing at all to say about the current political climate, being instead entirely concerned with grammar!

Q. How many tenses are there in the English language?

a) 3

b) 12ish

c) 2

If you said a), you were probably thinking the three were the past, present and future, but that’s incorrect.

If you said b), you’re probably an English teacher or have been an English student, and started ticking them off on your fingers: present simple, present continuous, present perfect simple…, but that’s not it either.

The answer is 2: past and present. You may be thinking that’s wrong. You may also be thinking Oh no, I told my students yesterday that the future perfect simple is a tense!

Continue reading →

Might is Right?

Niall O'Donnell 3 Comments

Teacher: Yes, that’s correct: We say “In the future, the planet will be warmer.” So when we’re talking about the future, we use will to…

Student: But teacher you can’t!

Teacher: Excuse me?

Student: You can’t say will because you’re not sure! What if things change? You have to use might, because maybe it won’t be warmer in the future! You can’t be certain!!

Teacher: Ok, tell me: what day will it be tomorrow?

Student: Saturday.

Teacher: Ah, but how can you be sure it’ll be Saturday? What if the world ends this evening? Continue reading →