How to talk about permanent situations in English correctly

Mirabella — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 14:20:09 +0000

👥 This article shares the deeper understanding of using Present Simple in the context of permanent situations. Quotes are real life examples from your blogs!

🔤 The basis of it all. Expressing permanent and unchangeable situations. Before we get adventurous and start describing things that change, things that are only temporary or things that are conditional, first we need to talk about what we already have. Let's start then with the permanent situations. To describe them we will go with Present Simple!

🚲 The easiest, for many, most natural structure to use in English. You do not need to know much to start, just the verb list of Google Translate to help you out.

Quick cheatsheet:

-s (for 3rd person singular)

Sarah works with programmers.

Do, Does?

Does Sarah work in helpdesk?
She doesn't do enough tests.

the verb be - am / is /are

Sarah isn't a programmer but she can become one if she wants to.

PERMANENT situations

I am a developer.
How does the Research Technology work?

Use Present Simple to express that whatever we are talking about is permanent from our perspective, and is unlikely to change.

CONSTANT states

Only three things are certain in life: death,taxes, and more meetings.
Python continues to be one of the bestprogramming languages every developer should learn.

Use Present Simple to talk about things you take for granted, which are not changing anytime soon. Very often we refer here to jobs, marital status, where we live and e.g. what language you program in.

UNCHANGEABLE truths

Basel enjoys learning about computer science,astronomy and philosophy.
I hate this (updating DOM inside datahandling functions?)

When we talk about things that are always true for us, even if we perceive them through the eyes of now, we use Present Simple.

STATE VERBS

When we talk about current situation, our natural instinct is to use Present Continuous. But with certain verbs it is impossible.
Verbs like:
*belong
*owe
*own
*know
*understand
*mean
*believe
do NOT take the continuous form, even if they express the current situation.

In this category we also get feelings/emotions:

like
hate
adore
enjoy
love.

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Present Simple

Present Simple is a great tool to talk about things we see as permanent. Those could be routines, habits, facts and general truths.
It is also useful when we meet a state verb that cannot be changed into another form.

🧳Prepare for your next language challenge with Mirabella!