Welcome to grammar school by Studies Martyr. This video focuses on tense and aspect, what they are and how to use them. Make sure you also check out our video on how to use different tenses in academic writing specifically. Tenses are what make verbs indicate time, whether an action happens in the past, present or future. Tenses come in aspects, simple, continuous, which is sometimes called progressive, perfect and perfect continuous or perfect progressive, depending on whether they refer to actions that are stable in progress already complete or expecting an outcome. The simple aspect is used for actions that are unchanging, straightforward facts or truths, whether these exist in the present, past or future. Note that the future tense requires the auxiliary or helping verb will. The continuous aspect indicates an action that is, was or will be, ongoing. The continuous aspect requires a form of the verb to be, as well as the ING form of the verb. Note that it is this auxiliary verb to be, that changes tense, while the main verb remains in its ING or present participle form. The perfect aspect indicates that an action is complete or leading towards an outcome. The perfect aspect is made up of the verb to have and the past participle of the main verb. In the case of regular verbs, this means the form that ends in E.D. Again, the auxiliary verb is the one that changes tense and indicates whether an action is completed in the present, the past or the future. The perfect continuous combines the previous two aspects. It is formed using the perfect form of the verb to be in either the past, present or future form and adding the present participle or ING form of the main verb. The perfect continuous indicates an ongoing action that is almost complete or leading towards an outcome. There we go. Each tense has four potential aspects, simple, continuous, perfect and perfect continuous. Thank you for watching and look out for more grammar school videos by Study Smarter.