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How to Use English Tenses in Different Situations

When to use which Tense? This is often asked by the learners and remain often confused until they learn the situations to use them.

Tense	Function	Example
Present simple	used for facts, generalizations, and truths that are not affected by the passage of time	“She writes a lot of papers for her classes.”
Past simple	used for events completed in the past	“She wrote the papers for all of her classes last month.”
Future simple	used for events to be completed in the future	“She will write papers for her classes next semester.”
Present perfect	used to describe events that began in the past and are expected to continue, or to emphasize the relevance of past events to the present moment	“She has written papers for most of her classes, but she still has some papers left to write.”
Past perfect	used to describe events that happened prior to other events in the past	“She had written several papers for her classes before she switched universities.”
Future perfect	used to describe events that will be completed between now and a specific point in the future	“She will have written many papers for her classes by the end of the semester.”
Present continuous	used to describe currently ongoing (usually temporary) actions	“She is writing a paper for her class.”
Past continuous	used to describe ongoing past events, often in relation to the occurrence of another event	“She was writing a paper for her class when her pencil broke.”
Future continuous	used to describe future events that are expected to continue over a period of time	“She will be writing a lot of papers for her classes next year.”
Present perfect continuous	used to describe events that started in the past and continue into the present or were recently completed, emphasizing their relevance to the present moment	“She has been writing a paper all night, and now she needs to get some sleep.”
Past perfect continuous	used to describe events that began, continued, and ended in the past, emphasizing their relevance to a past moment	“She had been writing a paper all night, and she needed to get some sleep.”
Future perfect continuous	used to describe events that will continue up until a point in the future, emphasizing their expected duration	“She will have been writing this paper for three months when she hands it in.”