Simple past and Simple present

Today, I have learned some grammars, there are very interesting and helpful for me.

This sentence “She was happy”. Someone says that  it has another meaning, It’s “She was happy in the past, but now he isn’t happy anymore.” I don’t know if it is true or not.

Tense (from wikipedia)

In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference with reference to the moment of speaking. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns. The main tenses found in many languages include the pastpresent, and future

Past tense

The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past time. 

Simple past(一般过去时)

  • part 1:
  • She was happy.  
  • She was not happy. 
  • Was she happy?
  • How was she?
  • part 2:
  • She liked music.
  • She didn’t like music.
  • Did she like music?
  • What did she like?

Simple present(一般现在时)

  • The earth is round.
  • knowledge is power.
  • Practice makes perfect.
  • part1
  • You are happy.
  • You are not happy.
  • Are you happy?
  • How are you?
  • part2
  • You like English.
  • You don’t like English.
  • Do you like English?
  • What do you like?
  • part3
  • He likes English.
  • He don’t like English.
  • Does he like English?
  • What does he like?

The simple present often connect with the following words.

Always.
Usually.
Often.
Frequently.
Sometimes.
Occasionally.
Seldom.
Hardly.
Never.

Every.
Once a week.
Twice a month.
Three times a year.

4 Responses so far.

  1. 龙飞虎 Chris says:

    Nice summary!

  2. 龙飞虎 Chris says:

    On this: QUOTE This sentence “She was happy”. Someone says that it has another meaning, It’s “She was happy in the past, but now he isn’t happy anymore.” I don’t know if it is true or not. UNQUOTE

    The sentence “she was happy” MIGHT mean that she isn’t happy any more. However, it’s not necessarily the case. There is not enough information in the sentence “she was happy” for us to know what happened afterwards. We could say, “she was happy (then) and she is even more happy now”. Or, we could say, “she was happy that day. And, since then, she has never been unhappy again”. All possible

    This is not an issue of grammar, but rather how much information is conveyed in each “chunk” of language.

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