Welcome to our new series on English grammar. In every English grammar blog post we’ll teach you the basics of different tenses and verbs to help you build up your language learning skills. Of course, we have to start at the very beginning with the present tenses. Today, we’re going to learn all about the present simple tense in particular its uses and how it differs in the negative and question forms.

Uses

We use the present simple to describe:

• permanent situations:
  • Lucy works in a hospital.
• routines or habitual actions:
  • I usually walk to work every day.
• general truths:
  • The earth goes around the sun.

Questions

With the present tense we use do and does to form questions. We form the third person (she/he/it) using does and do is used for the rest. For example:

• Do you study English?
• What does Henry study?
• Does she live in London?
• Where do you work?

As you can see we use do and does with question words like where, what and why. Now look at some examples using who what do you notice?

• Who studies English?
• Who lives in London?

Negatives

With the present tense we also use do and does to make negatives. We use does not (doesn’t) for the third person (she/he/it) and we use do not (don’t) for the others. For example:

• Lucy doesn’t work at a school.
• I don’t usually walk to work every day.

Can you find your own examples in every day life of the present simple in use? Let us know how you’re getting on with learning English grammar, especially the present simple, in the comments section below.

If you liked this post you might also like to read: Learn English: Talking about the past.