present simple

"I've got a new car." When you talk about possession, you can use have got or have. There is no difference in meaning. Practise using both expressions in our Basics section.

Did you know that there are some verbs you cannot use in the continuous tense? Find out which verbs they are in this exercise in our Basics series.

There's no time like the present! We use the present continuous to talk about something that is happening now: "It's raining."  We use the present simple to talk about general truths: "It rains a lot in Scotland."

"Do you like whisky?" We form questions in the present simple tense with the helping verb do. The present simple is used to talk about routines and general truths.

The present simple can have a future meaning when we talk about timetables (for buses, trains or planes) or schedules (for concerts, films or theatre): "Our plane arrives in half an hour."

They don't agree on food culture, but they speak to the same crowd: Jamie Oliver says "It's smelling delicious" and McDonald's use "I'm lovin' it" in their advertisements. Never mind their slang. Just say "It smells delicious" and "I love it".

In Walt Disney's "Alice in Wonderland", Alice meets a group of men who are doing something very strange. They don't always do it, do they? Watch a video and review the grammar rules for the present simple and the present continuous.

One of the core elements of any language is its tense system. In English the tenses have two important aspects, the simple form and the continuous form. Do you know the tenses?