Grammar Level 6- Lesson Ten- The Sequence of Tenses in English
In this grammar lesson, you learn about Sequence Of Tenses in English and how to use it in your English conversation and writing. Just follow sequence of tenses examples and write them down a few times to learn them very well. After finishing this lesson, you should work on its quiz.
Grammar Recap
In our previous lesson, we covered the Adverb Clauses in English If you just landed on this page, we suggest that you complete our previous lesson including its quizzes before continuing on this lesson.
Requirement Lessons
There is no required lessons for working and learning this lesson.
The Sequence of Tenses Examples
Understanding the sequence of tenses will help you do many things:
It helps you explain what someone else said (indirect quotations)
It helps you with conditional sentences (using the word “if”)
It helps you make sentences using the word “wish”
Here are some examples:
Someone says, “I need to go to the store.”
She said that she needed to go to the store.
You change “need” to “needed” but the situation is still in the present. This is a strange thing about English, but many Americans do this properly without thinking about it.
Here’s another example:
If you could meet me at the airport, I would be grateful.
In this situation, “can” changes to “could.” Why? Because “if” is present and the sentence is conditional. We will practice conditional sentences in Lessons 11, 12, and 13.
Here’s an example using “wish”:
I wish I had been at the party last night.
This sentence indicates that something did not happen in the past, but it uses the past perfect to express it. Confused? Take a look at the chart below and then go on to the next three lessons.
The Sequence of Tenses
Original Tense 
Changed to….
Present Past
Present Continuous Past Continuous
Past Past Perfect
Present Perfect Past Perfect
will would
can could
may might
Quiz for Sequence Of Tenses
Now that you learned your new lesson, it is time to go to the Sequence Of Tense page and finish your quiz. While working on your quiz, you can always go back to its lesson to refresh your memory.
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Next Grammar Lesson
In our next lesson, we will cover the Reported Speech Grammar Before moving to the next lesson, we suggest that you complete this lesson including its quizzes.
Related Grammar Lessons
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