Don't let the Tenses Frustrate you

Most Israelis struggle with all of the tenses in the English language. In Hebrew you had past, present, and future, where in English you have 12 tenses (four variations of the past, present, and future) plus the conditional tense. This frustrates a lot of people, as they see the additional 10 tenses as unnecessary and confusing, when actually these tenses just allow you to be more specific.

Here's the thing: you don't have to be super specific, and you don't have to always use the perfect tense for every situation.  I have students tell me all the time that they become confused with the tenses whenever they have to tell a story. I just tell them to keep it simple. You can tell a perfectly good story by using just the simple past. For example:

Yesterday I woke up, showered, and cooked breakfast.  After that I went to to the bank. Then I went to my first two lessons. I taught five students from 2-8:30 pm. After that I went home. 

That was my day yesterday, true, simple, and grammatically correct. Will it win you a Pulitzer Prize or get you on a best seller list? Of course not, but you'll be communicating correctly and directly. When you're starting out with English keep it simple, and when you want to spice things up brush up on your tenses. There's no need to et overwhelmed with all of the tenses when you're a new language learner, as you can perfectly communicate with the simple tenses.