VOA Learning English An Introduction to Verb Tenses
VOA Learning English An Introduction to Verb Tenses opens the Everyday Grammar series on the English tense system, pairing a nine-minute audio lesson with its full written text. Published by Voice of America, the lesson presents the three time frames and the four aspects, gives an example of each of the twelve tenses using a single verb, offers advice on choosing a tense, and ends with a question-and-answer drill and a reference table.
100% Free (unlimited): the written lesson, the nine-minute audio recording, the glossary and the reference table are all on the page, open to any visitor with no account, no registration and no payment. The audio can be played in the browser or embedded elsewhere, and the rest of the Everyday Grammar series opens on the same terms.
How It Helps Your Business English
The lesson explains that English forms only the past and the present from the verb alone and builds the other tenses with have, be and will, then works through the twelve tenses in four groups, simple, progressive, perfect and perfect progressive, illustrating every one with the same verb so the forms can be compared directly. Three pieces of advice follow: treat adverbs of time as clues, choose the simplest tense available, and answer a question in the tense it was asked in. Twelve questions and model answers put that last point into practice, and a glossary and a nine-cell reference table close the page.
You can listen to the recording and read along with the text, which lets you hear how each tense sounds in a full sentence rather than only seeing it written. Because every example uses the same verb, you can set the twelve forms side by side and see exactly what the auxiliaries add. The twelve questions give you a way to answer aloud before hearing the model, and the reference table at the end works as a card to return to when you are unsure which form a situation calls for.
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