Book Review: The English Tenses

Tenses can be tricky!

This review is late. I read this book about a month ago and had a review written up to auto publish about two weeks ago. Unfortunately, due to the magic elves that live in my computer. I have no idea where the original review went, and I've been very busy with school lately and unable to write a new one. Apologies again to author Phil Williams for this delay.

The English Tenses Practical Grammar Guide is not a book I would suggest students or teachers read from start to finish (though you certainly could). I would suggest that teachers keep this on hand to review before teaching a specific tense (or to brush up if they are teaching a new level). I would also encourage advanced students who learn well independently to consult this book to help them grapple with English tenses.

Basically, this would be a great addition for any English teacher's bookcase.

This book goes into a detailed description of the differences between all the different tenses of past, present and future. Seriously, all of them. Go to the link I gave above (or click on the book cover below) and check out the, "look inside" function Amazon gives. You'll be able to peruse the very detailed table of contents to get an idea of exactly what is in the book.

To the left you'll see a quick example of the table of contents with all of the different information is has on past tense! This repeats for the future and present tense as well.

Each section includes an explanation and the basic rules of the specific form in question. Then, Phil goes over the affirmative, interrogative, negative and negative question forms using multiple different examples and charts to make it clear what part of the sentence correlates to previous examples.

As a paperback, this book is under $25. If you read books on your tablet, kindle or online, then you can download the Kindle version for less than $7.00! It has AT LEAST 100 pages of solid information on tenses sure to clarify this topic to anyone who reads it.

Overall I'd encourage you to add this book to your wishlist. If you do get a chance to read it, or have a different text you'd recommend let me know in the comments.