The Present Simple is the most basic English tense. It describes habits, facts, permanent situations, and fixed schedules — but not what is happening right now.
How to form it
For most verbs, the Present Simple uses the base form — the verb without any ending. The only change is in the third person singular (he / she / it), which adds -s.
| SUBJECT | EXAMPLE |
|---|---|
| I / you / we / they | work |
| he / she / it | works |
A brief reminder of the spelling rules for the third-person -s (covered in detail in the verb forms lesson):
The verb have is irregular in the third person: have → has.
Negatives
To make a negative, use don't (do not) or doesn't (does not) before the base verb. The main verb stays in its base form — no -s ending, even with he / she / it.
Notice the pattern: doesn't already carries the third-person marking, so the verb itself drops the -s.
Questions
To form a yes/no question, put Do or Does before the subject. The main verb stays in its base form.
For questions with a question word (what, where, when, why, how), the question word comes first:
There is one exception: questions with who as the subject don't need do/does:
Habits and routines
The most common use of Present Simple is for actions that happen regularly or repeatedly.
These sentences describe what someone does as a rule, not what they are doing at this moment.
General truths and facts
Present Simple states things that are always true or generally accepted as fact.
The sentence doesn't refer to any particular time — it describes how the world works.
Permanent states
Use Present Simple for situations that are long-lasting or seen as stable.
If the situation changes, the sentence simply changes too. There is no special grammar needed — the speaker treats the current state as the default.
Timetables and schedules
Present Simple describes events that are part of an official or fixed schedule, even when they refer to the future.
This applies to transport schedules, cinema times, class timetables, and similar fixed plans. Personal plans and intentions use other structures.
Time markers
Certain words appear often with Present Simple because they signal regular or general actions.
Frequency adverbs: always, usually, often, sometimes, rarely, never
Time expressions: every day, every week, every year, on Mondays, in the morning, at night, once a month, twice a year
What Present Simple does not do
Present Simple does not describe an action happening right now, at the moment of speaking. For that, English uses a different tense — Present Continuous.
If someone asks "What are you doing?", the answer uses Present Continuous, not Present Simple.
Common mistakes
Missing -s in third person
Adding -s after doesn't
Adding -s after does in questions
Using do/does with the verb "be"
Using Present Simple for "right now"