Present Simple

Read an extensive course syllabus that explains what each activity is, how to complete it and how it will help you improve your understanding of the present simple tense.

We set out the key objectives for this course so you can identify what you need to learn. We provide a downloadable checklist that you can print out to check off the points as you go through the course.

This is a presentation that explains what tenses are, why we need them and how the tense system works in English. As well as a presentation, you can test yourself using our interactive question and answer flashcards.

In this video you will learn the top 20 verbs in English. We point you towards our translator so you can understand all these verbs in your own language. We will use these example verbs in the present simple explanation videos. You can download a list of these top 20 verbs and you can listen to audios of a native English teacher saying each verb in its infinitive form, so you can learn the correct pronunciation.

Before starting the grammar section of this course, we provide you with all the correct materials. This includes the slides used in our grammar presentations with notes lines and an interactive worksheet, which you can answer whilst watching the videos. We provide the correct answers to this interactive worksheet too and point you to our grammar forum, where you can ask any questions about the correct grammar of the present simple tense.

This video explains the key uses of the present simple tense. You will see numerous example sentences with in-depth explanations of why we need the present simple tense in English. There also have access to a downloadable PDF list of the most common stative verbs.

We explain how to form the affirmative of the present simple tense in a collection of short videos. Although most verbs are regular in the present simple affirmative, there are a few verbs that don't follow the usual patterns and we explain why this is and how to convert these verbs into their present simple tense form correctly in the affirmative.

This grammar video explains the negative form of the present simple tense. We show you all the parts you need to correctly form the negative with numerous example sentences too. We also introduce the topic of contractions and how they are used in the present simple tense.

There are four different ways to form a question in the present simple tense. In this grammar video, we explain the structure of all four question forms and demonstrate how to choose between each question structure.

Most courses don't teach short responses as part of the tense, but at Virtually Fluent, we do. We explain in this video what a short response is, why you might need it, how it is used and how to form it in the present simple tense.

Keywords are special words that work very well in one particular tense. In this video, we explain the keywords for the present simple tense. As well as the words, you'll see how they are used, synonyms, their position in the sentence and numerous examples.

Through experience, we have collected information about the most common mistakes that learners make when trying to form the present simple tense. We present our top mistakes and explain how you can avoid them yourself.

This presentation demonstrates the use of the present simple tense in real life. We have found examples of the present simple tense online and in news articles and show these examples to you, so you can see how it's used in the everyday life of native speakers.

Before starting the pronunciation section of this course, we provide you with all the correct materials. This includes the slides used in our pronunciation presentations with notes lines and an interactive worksheet, which you can answer whilst watching the videos. We provide the correct answers to this interactive worksheet too and point you to our pronunciation forum, where you can ask any questions about the correct pronunciation of the present simple tense.

This pronunciation summarises the S rule and explains when it is needed. You may have guessed that it's extremely important in the present simple tense.

In order to fully understand how to correctly pronounce words ending in S, you need to understand all the sounds we have particularly, voiced and unvoiced sounds. In this video, we introduce the phonetic chart and the basics of English pronunciation to you and explain how this will help you correctly pronounce all words ending in S in English. You also have access to a downloadable PDF of the phonetic chart.

We provide an in-depth explanation of how to pronounce the letter S. We show close-up videos of our native teachers saying this sound and explain why this matters for the present simple tense.

We provide an in-depth explanation of how to pronounce the letter Z. We show close-up videos of our native teachers saying this sound and explain why this matters for the present simple tense.

We provide an in-depth explanation of how to pronounce the combination sound IZ. We show close-up videos of our native teachers saying this and explain why this matters for the present simple tense.

This is a downloadable document with a list of present simple verbs. You can practise saying these words to ensure you are pronouncing the present simple tense correctly. You can also access audios of our native teachers saying these words, so you can repeat after the teacher or at the same time.

This is a self-study activity that you can do in your own time to help you practise the form of the present simple tense, although this tool can easily be used for other tenses too. We provide you with links and documents to help you complete this activity.

This is a self-study activity that you can do in your own time to help you practise using the present simple tense when talking about your daily routine. We provide you with links and documents to help you complete this activity.

This is a self-study activity that you can do in your own time to help you practise the form of the present simple tense. We provide you with links and documents to help you complete this activity. There is also a forum attached to this activity where you can interact with the other course members and get written corrections and feedback on your comments from our teachers.

Practise creating questions in the present simple tense in our celebrity interview activity.

Conversation is normally the reason why we learn grammar. We provide a list of the most typical conversation questions in the present simple tense and you have access to our conversation forum where you can write answers to these questions. We also provide you with access to our private Flipgrid community where you can upload videos of yourself answering these questions and listen to other learners' answers.

This is a self-study activity that you can do in your own time to help you practise using the present simple tense in debate. We provide you with links and documents to help you complete this activity.

This review page summarises everything learnt in this course. We present all the forms of the present simple tense as well as the use, some example sentences, keywords, and present simple pronunciation all in one page.

We list the objectives of this course and your achievements, so you can see how much you have progressed by taking our course.

Take a look at some of our published resources online to help you improve your general knowledge of English.

We always appreciate any feedback from our learners. Here you have the chance to fill in an optional questionnaire telling us what you liked and didn't like so we can keep on improving for our future learners.