Tenses Review
South Africa: Life with – and without – load shedding
Open on your phone
Scan the QR code to open this page directly.
Start: Lights out in South Africa?
In the news
Reveal the headlines one by one. Talk about each headline before you open the next one.
📖 Useful words
🔌 Why was there load shedding?
📊 The chart
Fast facts
💬 Talk about it
Task: Read Thabo’s blog. He is 16 and lives in Soweto, Johannesburg. Put the verbs in brackets into the correct tense. The tenses are all mixed up:
Simple Present · Present Progressive · Present Perfect · Present Perfect with since/for · Present Perfect Progressive · Simple Past · Past Progressive · Past Perfect · going to-Future · will-Future
Look for the signal words – and watch out for negatives (not / …) and adverbs that go into the verb form (already / …, never / …).
Need help?
Start with Level 1 (no help). If you get stuck, switch to a higher level: Level 2 shows the signal words in bold, Level 3 also colours them in the colour of their tense – the same colours as the flashcards at the bottom of the page.
Thabo’s blog: “Lights on!”
Flashcards: the ten tenses
Not sure about a rule? Click (or tap) a card to flip it. On the back you find when to use the tense, the forms (✅ positive, ❌ negative, ❓ question), where the adverb goes (📍) and the signal words (🔎).
Tense test – are you ready?
10 quick questions: sometimes you see a verb form and choose the tense, sometimes you get a tense and a verb and write the form. Not sure? Look at the flashcards above!