English - Tenses

- for sth happening right now or over a period of time around now (He is practising the violin as you can hear / We are rehearsing Mozart in the orchestra)

- for changing/developing situations (I'm getting better at it)

- for future arrangements (She's playing the first violing in the next concert)

- for annoying habits, with "always" (They are always interrupting me)

- For actions, states, recurrent events in a period leading up to the present (I've played the violin for 12 years)

- for news or recent events, without any specific time reference (There has been a brilliant concert in..)

- for actions whose result we can still see (Wow! You must have pracitsed a lot!)

- for experience in our lives (She has never been to the KKL before)

- with superlatives and "first, second.." (That's the third time I've heard him play & it's the most beautiful concert I've ever been to)

- with "state" verbs (I've known/liked that piece since I was a child)

- to emphasise recent activities whose effects can still be seen (My arm hurts. I've been playing for 5 hours)

- to emphasise how long sth has been going on for (We have been practising all morning)

- to suggest that it's temporary (He has been playing the violin for 3 months but is going to give it up)

- to suggest that the action is not complete (I've been practising this piece but I can't play it very well yet)

- for finished actions, situations, facts, states, events or habits in the past (Yesterday I practised for 6 hours. It was hard work but I enjoyed it)

- in reported speech (She said she didn't always practise enough)

- for actions in progress at a specific time in the past (Who were you talking to during the break?)

- for background actions when sth else happened (We were playing the Bach Suite when suddenly..)

- for annoying habits with "always" (They were always interrupting me)

- for an action that happend before another action in the past (I hadn't practised the vioning during the holiday, so I had to make up for it)

- for longer actions or situations that continued up to the past moment we are thinking about (When you rang me up I had already been practising for 3 hours)

- for plans in the future (I'm going to practise more for the next concert)

- for predictions based on evidence or experience (He doesn't suffer from stage fright, so he's going to play well)

- to talk about anticipated events in the past that did not happen (I was going to play the solo part buth then I broke my arm)

- for neutral or vague predictions (I will play that difficult piece some day)

- for spontaneous reactions (I will play if you don't want to, no problem!)

- for subjective feelings (I'm sure he will win the prize)

- for pormises (If you practise regularly you will become better)

- for the weather forecast (Tomorrow will be sunny)

- for an action in progress in the future (This time tomorrow I will be playing in the big concert hall)

- for an action that will be completed by a specific time in the future (By this time tomorrow I will have finished the concert)

- for assumptions (She won't have wanted to play, that's probably why she isn't here)

- for an action that will have been going on up to a specific time in the future (By my 40th birthday I will have been playing the violin for 34 years)