how many tenses exist in english?

[Anonymous]

and if you are able to give me a full list of the tenses, i'll be thankful...

[Pete]

(how many tenses exist in English?)
and if you are able to give me a full list of the tenses, I'll be thankful...

Unfortunately, this question isn't as easy to answer as it would appear. The problem is that different authorities and authors define "tense" in different ways. For instance, some linguists say that a "tense" must be distinguished by a separate form of the verb. They do not consider that English has a future tense. Others think that it is much more useful to consider the "will" or "is going to" forms that define future situations as legitimate tenses.

Also, some people consider the forms we call perfect and continuous (progressive) to form distinct tenses, but other find it better to have fewer tenses and call those forms "aspects".

I like the system used in The Grammar Book by Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman:
They recognize 3 tenses:

Past
Present
Future
Each of these can come in any of 4 aspects:

Simple
Perfect
Continuous (Progressive)
Perfect Continuous (Perfect Progressive)
This gives 12 combinations. It is much easier to learn how to use them by first thinking separately about the tenses and about the aspects, and then looking at the different combinations, but some writers prefer to list all 12 forms as separate tenses:

Past (he gave)
Present (he gives)
Future (he will give)
Past perfect (he had given)
Present perfect (he has given)
Future perfect (he will have given)
Past continuous (he was giving)
Present continuous (he is giving)
Future continuous (he will be giving)
Past perfect continuous (he had been giving)
Present perfect continuous (he has been giving)
Future perfect continuous (he will have been giving)
Use whatever system you find helpful (or use the system that your teacher uses).