Tenses and Concord: Getting Subject-Verb Agreement Right

Tenses

Tense shows the time an action takes place. The three main tenses are: Present (I play), Past (I played), and Future (I will play). Each has simple, continuous, perfect and perfect continuous forms.

Common Tense Errors

• Mixing past and present in the same sentence: "He goes to school and played football" should be "He went to school and played football."
• Wrong use of irregular verbs, e.g. "goed" instead of "went".

Concord (Subject-Verb Agreement)

Concord means the subject and verb must agree in number. A singular subject takes a singular verb; a plural subject takes a plural verb.

• "The boy runs fast." (singular subject, singular verb)
• "The boys run fast." (plural subject, plural verb)

Special Cases

Collective nouns (team, family, class) are usually treated as singular: "The team is playing well." Indefinite pronouns like "everyone" and "somebody" also take singular verbs: "Everyone is here."

Practice Tip

Always find the true subject of the sentence before choosing the verb form, especially when phrases come between the subject and verb.