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I have been learning the English language for five months. I have learned some basic verb tenses such as simple present, present continuous, simple past, past continuous, present perfect and present perfect continuous.

There are quite a few tenses that I haven't learned yet such as past perfect, past perfect continuous, future continuous, future perfect, future perfect continuous and future in the past.

I have spoken with some teachers and they told me that not all tenses are used in conversational English. I want to know which ones are commonly used in conversational English.

  • Simple Present
  • Present Continuous
  • Simple Past
  • Past Continuous
  • Present Perfect
  • Present Perfect Continuous
  • Past Perfect
  • Past Perfect Continuous
  • Simple Future
  • Future Continuous
  • Future Perfect
  • Future Perfect Continuous
  • Future in the Past
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Just out of interest, why are people voting to close this? The underlying premise may be false, but it's not such a bad question per se. – Neil Coffey May 30 '12 at 16:13
I think I use all of them except maybe the future perfect continuous, which doesn't come up very often. Which ones are most common would definitely be an interesting question. – Peter Shor May 30 '12 at 16:17
The only verb form will only have ever had been used by me is the future perfect passive hortatory continuous...hold on, perfect -and- continuous? I thought 'perfect' meant 'completed'. – Mitch May 30 '12 at 16:47
@Peter Shor: But OP will have been hoping for us to cover all the tenses listed. And to be honest I'm not sure whether that qualifies as "future perfect continuous", or whether it's a variant of "modal/conditional perfect conditional", since it's equivalent to would have been hoping (i.e. - referring to OP's supposed past state, not some future state that hasn't arisen yet). – FumbleFingers May 30 '12 at 16:51
@FumbleFingers I don't know, "future perfect continuous" seems pretty easy: I will have been running, for example. – Mark Beadles May 30 '12 at 16:52
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closed as not constructive by Clark Kent, FumbleFingers, Armen Ծիրունյան, simchona♦, cornbread ninja 麵包忍者 May 30 '12 at 16:18

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