English 路 Chapter 1 路 Lesson 11 路 Grammar primer
The present simple
How English says what is true now and what happens again and again - the everyday tense.
The short version
The -s is added once and only once
He, she and it take an -s on the verb, and dropping it marks you as a beginner faster than almost anything else. But once you bring in does or doesn't, the auxiliary is already carrying the ending, so the main verb goes bare. Two -s endings in one sentence is one too many.
Does she like coffee?
A present tense for a future timetable
The present simple talks about the future when a timetable, calendar or programme decides the time. The departure is already printed and unchangeable, so English treats it as a present fact. Your own plans are not timetabled, so they take the present continuous instead: I am meeting Sam at three.
The train leaves at nine.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
Read the full article 路 6 min readPractice
Practise this lesson
10-question session
One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 22 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.
English 路 Free printables
Worksheets for this lesson
Worksheets with answer keys built in. Open any one to view, print or save.
Lesson 11 of 35 in this chapter