The present tense (

abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

or ) is a

grammatical tense In grammar, tense is a grammatical category, category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their grammatical conjugation, conjugation patterns. The main tenses foun ...

whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present tense, it is useful to imagine time as a line on which the

past tense The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...

, the present and the

future tense In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meaning ...

are positioned. The term ''present tense'' is usually used in descriptions of specific languages to refer to a particular grammatical form or set of forms; these may have a variety of uses, not all of which will necessarily refer to present time. For example, in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

sentence "My train leaves tomorrow morning", the verb form ''leaves'' is said to be in the present tense, even though in this particular context it refers to an event in future time. Similarly, in the

historical present In linguistics and rhetoric, the historical present or historic present, also called dramatic present or narrative present, is the employment of the present tense when narrating past events. It is widely used in writing about history in Latin (w ...

, the present tense is used to narrate events that occurred in the past. There are two common types of present tense form in most

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

: the present

indicative A realis mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Most ...

(the combination of present tense and indicative mood) and the present

subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...

(the combination of present tense and subjunctive mood). The present tense is mainly classified into four parts: # Simple present # Present perfect # Present continuous # Present perfect continuous

Use

The present indicative of most verbs in modern

has the same form as the infinitive, except for the third-person singular form, which takes the ending ''- ''. The verb ''be'' has the forms ''am'', ''is'', ''are''. For details, see

English verbs Verbs constitute one of the main parts of speech (word classes) in the English language. Like other types of words in the language, English verbs are not heavily inflected. Most combinations of tense, aspect, mood and voice are expressed perip ...

. For the present subjunctive, see

English subjunctive While the English language lacks distinct inflections for Grammatical mood, mood, an English subjunctive is recognized in most History of English grammars, grammars. Definition and scope of the concept vary widely across the literature, but it is ...

. A number of multi-word constructions exist to express the combinations of present tense with the basic form of the present tense is called the

simple present The simple present, present simple or present indefinite is one of the verb forms associated with the present tense in modern English. It is commonly referred to as a tense, although it also encodes certain information about aspect in addition ...

; there are also constructions known as the

present progressive The present continuous, also called the present progressive or present imperfect, is a verb form used in modern English that combines the present tense with the continuous aspect. It is formed by the present tense form of be and the present part ...

(or present continuous) (e.g. ''am writing''), the

present perfect The present perfect is a grammatical combination of the present tense and perfect aspect that is used to express a past event that has present consequences. The term is used particularly in the context of English grammar to refer to forms like " ...

(e.g. ''have written''), and the

present perfect progressive This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes: * Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went'' * Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone'' * Combinations of s ...

(e.g. ''have been writing''). Use of the present tense does not always imply the present time. In particular, the present tense is often used to refer to future events (''I am seeing James tomorrow''; ''My train leaves at 3 o'clock this afternoon''). This is particularly the case in condition clauses and many other adverbial subordinate clauses: ''If you see him,...''; ''As soon as they arrive...'' There is also the

, in which the present tense is used to narrate past events. For details of the uses of present tense constructions in English, see

Uses of English verb forms This article describes the uses of various verb forms in modern standard English language. This includes: * Finite verb forms such as ''go'', ''goes'' and ''went'' * Nonfinite forms such as ''(to) go'', ''going'' and ''gone'' * Combinations of s ...

Hellenic languages

Modern Greek present indicative tense

Modern Greek Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...

, the present tense is used in a similar way to the present tense in English and can represent the

present continuous The present continuous, also called the present progressive or present imperfect, is a verb form used in modern English that combines the present tense with the continuous aspect. It is formed by the present tense form of be and the present part ...

as well. As with some other conjugations in Greek, some verbs in the present tense accept different (but equivalent) forms of use for the same person. What follows are examples of present tense conjugation in Greek for the verbs βλέπω (see), τρώω (eat) and αγαπώ (love).

Romance languages

The Romance languages are derived from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

, and in particular western

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...

. As a result, their usages and forms are similar.

Latin present indicative tense

The

present tense can be translated as progressive or simple present. Here are examples of the present indicative tense conjugation in Latin.

French present indicative tense

In French, the present tense is used similarly to that of English. Below is an example of present tense conjugation in French. The present indicative is commonly used to express the present continuous. For example, ''Jean mange'' may be translated as ''John eats'', ''John is eating''. To emphasise the present continuous, expressions such as "en train de" may be used. For example, ''Jean est en train de manger'' may be translated as ''John is eating'', ''John is in the middle of eating.'' ''On est en train de chercher un nouvel appartement'' may be translated as ''We are looking for a new apartment'', ''We are in the process of finding a new apartment.''

Italian present indicative tense

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

, the present tense is used similarly to that of English. What follows is an example of present indicative tense conjugation in Italian.

Portuguese and Spanish present indicative tense

The present tenses of

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

are similar in form, and are used in similar ways. What follows are examples of the present indicative conjugation in Portuguese. There follow examples of the corresponding conjugation in Spanish.

Slavic languages

Bulgarian present indicative tense

Bulgarian Bulgarian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria * Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group * Bulgarian language, a Slavic language * Bulgarian alphabet * A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria * Bul ...

, the present indicative tense of imperfective verbs is used in a very similar way to the present indicative in English. It can also be used as present progressive. Below is an example of present indicative tense conjugation in Bulgarian. *Archaic, no infinitive in the modern language.

Macedonian present tense

The present tense in Macedonian is expressed using imperfective verbs. The following table shows the conjugation of the verbs ''write'' (''пишува/pišuva''), ''speak'' (''зборува/zboruva''), ''want'' (''сака/saka'') and ''open'' (''отвaра/otvara'').

Sinitic languages

Wu Chinese The Wu languages (; Romanization of Wu Chinese, Wu romanization and Romanization of Wu Chinese#IPA, IPA: ''wu6 gniu6'' [] (Shanghainese), ''ng2 gniu6'' [] (Suzhounese), Mandarin pinyin and IPA: ''Wúyǔ'' []) is a major group of Sinitic languag ...

, unlike other Sinitic languages (Varieties of Chinese), some tenses can be marked, including the present tense. For instance, in Suzhou dialect, Suzhounese and Old

Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the Districts of Shanghai, central districts of the Shanghai, City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as ...

, the word is used. The particle is placed at the end of a clause, and when a tense is referenced, the

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

switches to SOV. In a sentence such as "", it would be the

perfective aspect The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imp ...

Standard Mandarin Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standar ...

, whereas this would be analysed as the present tense in contemporary

, where has underwent

lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonority hierarchy, sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronic analysis, s ...

to .

References

{{Authority control Grammatical tenses

Use