Present Indicative in English

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Present Indicative in English

Today we’re going to talk about the present indicative in English. This refers to the combination of present tense and indicative mood, built from the present subjunctive, which is the combination of present tense imperative mood and subjunctive mood.

We’ll look at the conjugation of verb forms, as well as he/she and how other common sentence starters and completers will look in the present indicative.

Unlike in Spanish present indicative, the present indicative in English doesn’t have to worry about ir verbs and er verbs, but on general verb conjugation. (If only English’ major grammar skills indicator tests like the SAT and ACT for example).

That sounds confusing, especially if you are a non-native English speaker, so we’ve broked in down into basic examples here in this post. This post combines with others we’ve done on the basics of English grammar.

For regular present indicative, follow the following guidelines.

Tell what is happening, what happened, what will happen

Indicative means to tell the facts. What you’re doing by using present indicative in English is getting straight to the point and telling the person you are speaking to what’s up. Indicative exists in all the basic tenses. Though we’re talking present indicative here, here’s a quick rundown on indicative in each tense:

Present: what happens, what is happening

I run, I am running

Narrative Past: what happened

I ran, I was running

Perfect, Present Perfect, or Conversational Past: what happened

I went, I was going

Past Perfect what took place before something else in the past happened

I had gone to the store before I went to work that day.

Future: what will happen

I will run to work tomorrow morning

To practice present indicative in English, write out a few examples on your own (or in a free English lesson). You can start by copying what we have here and replacing the verbs with other verbs, until you feel confident enough to write a fresh sentence on your own.

We’d like to send you a bunch of free material to help you master present indicative in English and other verb tenses. Sign up for the free English Survival Crash Course and, over the course of a few days, we’ll send you ebooks and audio files to practice with.