Understanding Simple Present Tense (verbal)

Simple Present tense is the basic tenses when we learn about English, especially if you are foreign or second language learner. Although it is basic of English,many students have difficulties when they meet this sentence in the text, or write their form because of they don't know or understanding about it. So let us get acquintanced with this tenses pattern.

In this article, we will discuss and understanding of Simple Present tense as verbal sentence. We should know first about verbal sentence. Verbal sentence is the sentence has the verb (read more about verbal sentence). Let us see the examples below:

• We are the students (NONVERBAL)
• She is my mother(NONVERBAL)
• Budi eats fried banana(VERBAL)
• They play in the backyard(VERBAL)

From the examples above, we can see the third and fourth are verbal sentences.

If we talk about present tense, Present tense is the sentence that tell us about what happen in the present, it can be facts, daily activities/routines,hobbies/habits, spoken language or statement.

Pattern	Example	meaning
S+V1(s/es)+O+ADV(optional)	My father reads newspaper today We come to your school this afternoon	Ayah saya membaca koran hari ini Kami datang ke sekolah mu siang ini
S+DO/DOES+NOT+V1+O+ADV(optional)	My math teacher doesn't teach us everyday Elephants don't break those houses	Guru MTK saya tidak mengajar kami setiap hari Gajah gajah tidak merusak rumah-rumah itu
DO/DOES+S+V1+O+ADV(optional)	Do you like orange juice? Does he watch the movie today?	Apakah kamu suka jus jeruk? Apakah dia menonton movie hari ini?

How do we know the present tense sentence?We can know if it is present tense or not by seeing this characteristics :

• VERB : Present tense Verbal always use Verb1 and for subject HE/SHE/IT Verb 1 adding s/es
• Adverb of time : For adverb of time, the sentence use Present time such as , This ...., for example this morning, this sunday; Today; Everyday;and tonight
• For negative and interogative, we use DO/DOES for Verbal sentence, which Do for Subject I/You/They/We and DOes for He/She/It. When they use DO/DOES, the verb become V1 without -s/-es anymore

How about the the rule to add s/es for Verb1 for HE/SHE/IT subject?

• For Verb that has final consonant such as -ss, -sh, -ch, -x, -o, -z, -s, will add with -es, example : GOes, WATCHes, FIXes, KISSes, WASHes etc
• For Verb that final consonant -y, that is preceded by a consonant letter (a,i,u,e,o), -Y will remove and change with -i and add by -es, example : CRies(from CRY), FLies (fly), TRIES(try),STUDies(Study) etc
• For Verb that final consonant -y, that is preceded by a vocal letter (a,i,u,e,o) will add by -S, example : BUYs,PLAYs,etc
• For other words, that except above rules, only add by -s,example : SELLs, DRINKs, SLEEPs, SITs, EATs, and etc

Those rules above also occur for Noun in Plural form (especially for regular noun). I hope you understand about present tense. If you want to try your skills about present tense, let's do some exercises, by click one from the exercises below. Happy English guys, see you in next topic.

Exercise list

• Easy: Simple Present tense 1