Classic Bookish Explanation for Simple Present Tense

Conventionally this tense is taught to be used when talking of Schedule, Habits or General truths. I have seen many Indian institutes take a more "Translational" approach, encouraging the use of "terminating keys" to identify this tense. ( Hindi Sentences ending with Ta, Tai, Tee).

The Singular Agents take first form of Verb + /s sound. And the Plural agents take first form of Verb. I and You are considered Plurals.

Both of these approaches don't work. These methods work for written English, but not for Spoken.  That's where the tongue training comes in.

When To use the Simple Present Tense

Use it when you want to talk of

• Usual Events. Things that keep happening regularly.
• Keywords like usually, generally, mostly, often, every day, every hour, Every summer should be your clue to using this tense.
• Think of a trend. When you want to talk of something that looks like a trend- something that has happened earlier, is happening and you think will continue happening.
• Finally  when ever you want to convey a sense of USUAL, use it .

Tongue Training

There are 2 major exercises required for  tongue training.

1. Training your tongue for Nouns

All the nouns ending with '/s' sound take a verb that doesn't end with /s sound.  Other nouns take verbs ending with /s sound. I call this the minimization of /s sound rule. You tongue is trying to minimize the sound of /s because it's inconvenient.

Example :

Birds Fly.  Bird Flies
My Shoes Squeak. My Shoe Squeaks
Kids like to play. This Kid likes to play

Go on and train your tongue with At least 40 nouns. After sometime, your tongue will get used to using /s sound only ones.

Exceptions

There are many plurals that are made without /s sound. Like People , teeth, fish etc. All such plurals take first form of verb.

People Like to vote.
People Don't like to Vote

2. Training your tongue for Pronouns and Names.

Now you must train your tongue to terminate verbs with /s sound after certain pronouns.

I work, I play, I like, I hope, I think....
You work, You play, you like, You hope, you think.........
We work, we like, we play, we hope, we think
They like , they work, they play, they hop, they speak

He likes , he speaks, he thinks, he wants...
She Likes, she wants, she thinks, she says, she hopes
it works, it looks, it seems, it feels.......
Amit likes, Amit tries, Amit works, Amit thinks ....
Everyone likes, everyone thinks, everyone wants...


The idea is to train your tongue into terminating a verb after He with an /s sound. After a while, without thinking of the rule of singular and plural - your tongue will use the right form of verb with he.

Tongue Training Exercise For Fluency in Simple Present Tense

The only exercises you have to master this tense are

1. Train your tongue for the nouns.

Repeat sentences like Bird flies, birds Fly several times. Make your own sentences and keep repeating them.

With this , your tongue will get used to using /s sound only ones. Though this won't help with the plurals formed without /s sound.

2. Train your tongue for the pronouns and Names.

Repeat sentences with pronouns like I, we, he, she, It, they , everyone and the name of a person like Amit /Shelly.

Slowly, you will get into habit of saying ' he thinks'. Even if someone says 'He think', you would think it wrong because it will sound odd.

That's all for this session. Next session discusses Negatives and Interrogatives.