The Perfect Verb Tenses

Common Core Language Standard 5.1 addresses the perfect verb tenses, calling for students to “Form and use the perfect (e.g., I had walked; I have walked; I will have walked) verb tenses” (Common Core Standards, 2010) as part of a more general statement that students should show command of grammatical conventions. There are three perfect verb tenses: the past perfect, the present perfect, and the future perfect. Each tense refers to a completed action (the word perfect, in this sense, is a synonym for completed). Let’s look at each perfect tense in more detail.