simple explanation of the present simple

1. The present simple
By: lligeon

2. Contents
 What is the present simple?
 The rule
 The form
 Negative sentences
 Questions

3. What is the present simple?
 The present tense grammatical form that is used when you want to talk about something:
 ..that is true in the present  He lives in London.
 ..that happens again and again in the present  I play football every weekend.
 ..that is always true  Water boils at a hundred degrees celsius.

4. The rule
Again: we use the present simple to talk about things:
 ..that are true in the present  He lives in London.
 ..that happen again and again in the present  I play football every weekend.
 ..that are always true  Water boils at a hundred degrees celsius.

5. The form
The form is pretty simple….for the regular verbs.
You either use the infinitive (the whole verb, without to) OR the infinitive + s
walk OR walks
play OR plays
listen OR listens
have OR has (irregular verb)
The last example is an irregular verb. More on that later.

6. The form
So when do you use only the infinitive and when do you use the infinitive + s? In other words, when do you
add the s?
That’s easy! Only the 3e person singular gets the s.
So only he, she and it get the extra s.
Examples: She always gets up at five.
He works at a clothing store.
It runs faster than a lion.
But: They get up at seven.
We work at a clothing store.
You run faster than Usain Bolt.

7. Negative sentences
You can also use the present simple to talk about:
..things that are NOT true in the present
..things that DO NOT happen again and again
In order to do that, we get help from another verb.
The verb do  I do not play football every weekend.
They do not deliver pizza in this area.
Don’t forget to add not after do.

8. Negative sentences
The verb do has allowed us to use two forms for the present simple:
do OR does
How do we know which one we use?
That’s easy! Only the 3e person singular uses does.
So only he, she and it use does.
Examples: She does not get up at five.
He does not work at a clothing store.
It does not run faster than a lion.
But: They do not get up at seven.
We do not work at a clothing store.
You do not run faster than Usain Bolt.
NOTICE how the verb after not is always the infinitive!!

9. Questions
We can also use the present simple to ask questions about things in the present. Again we need the help
of our friend, the verb do. And again, we can use two forms: do & does.
When do we use does?  3e person singular (he, she, it)
To make questions, remember this simple formula:
do/does + subject (he, we, Mary, the school) + infinitive without to
Examples: Do you work in a clothing store?
Do we have to pay the full price?
Does he know about her past?
Does it work well enough?