ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the uses of the tenses of the indicative mood: present tense, past and the perfect tenses, future tenses, pluperfect tense, and English progressive tenses. The forms and uses of the tenses in German and English are quite similar, and the chapter concentrates on the uses of German tenses which differ from those of the corresponding English tenses. German often uses the present tense to refer to the future. The main differences between the two German tenses can be summarized as: The perfect tense is used principally to refer to past actions or events which have some relevance to the present in spoken German and to refer to past actions and events; and the past tense is used principally, in written German, to refer to past actions and events. Narrations of past actions and events are typically predominantly in the past tense in written German and in the perfect tense in spoken German.
