Present Simple – Affirmative
📌 Lesson Contents
🎯 Lesson goal
In this lesson you will learn to use the Present Simple 📖 (affirmative form only, for now), one of the most important English tenses. You will see when to use it 🧠, how to form it, the special spelling rules and the common mistakes. Then test yourself with the quiz at the bottom of the page! 🚀
🌟 What is the Present Simple?
We use the Present Simple to talk about habits, true facts, stable situations and timetables. It is one of the easiest tenses: for almost every person, the verb stays exactly the same.
📌 Basic examples:
- I eat breakfast. 🍳
- We play football. ⚽
- They study English. 📚
👉 But be careful! With he / she / it (and every singular noun), we always add a final -s or -es to the verb:
- He eats cereal.
- She plays the piano.
- The school opens at 8.
🧩 Summary – Present Simple form
| Subject | Verb form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| I / You / We / They | Base verb | I work. |
| He / She / It (or a singular noun) | Verb + -s / -es | She works. |
🔍 When do we use the Present Simple?
- Habits and routines ⏰ ➔ I wake up at 7.
- True facts / laws of nature 🔥 ➔ Water boils at 100°C.
- Stable situations 🏡 ➔ She lives in Rome.
- Timetables and schedules 🎫 ➔ The bus leaves at 5 p.m.
📚 Special spelling rules (for He/She/It)
When you add -s for the third person singular, look at the last letter of the verb:
| Type of verb (ending) | Rule | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Normal | + s | He plays. / She works. |
| -ch, -sh, -s, -x, -o | + es | go ➔ goes / watch ➔ watches |
| Consonant + y | The y changes to ies | study ➔ studies / cry ➔ cries |
| Vowel + y (ay, ey, oy…) | + s (regular) | play ➔ plays / buy ➔ buys |
❓ Helpful answers
- The -s always goes on the verb with he/she/it, even for animals and things: The dog barks.
- The pronoun You is used for one person and for many people. The verb does not change.
- In English you can never skip the subject in a statement: always write I go or She eats, never just Go or eat.
🚫 Common mistakes to avoid
| Mistake ❌ | Correct ✅ |
|---|---|
| He eat breakfast. | He eats breakfast. (Don’t forget the -s!) |
| She go to school. | She goes to school. (It ends in -o, so we need -es.) |
| The cat sleep all day. | The cat sleeps all day. (The cat = it, so we need -s.) |
Gap Fill & Translation Exercises
Test yourself! In the first 15 sentences, put the verb in brackets into the Present Simple. In the last 5, build the English sentence from the words given (level A1).