The present tense (abbreviated PRES or PRS) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time.^[1] The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present tense, it is useful to imagine time as a line on which the past tense, the present and the future tense are positioned. The term present tense is usually used in descriptions of specific languages to refer to a particular grammatical form or set of forms; these may have a variety of uses, not all of which will necessarily refer to present time. For example, in the English sentence "My train leaves tomorrow morning", the verb form leaves is said to be in the present tense, even though in this particular context it refers to an event in future time. Similarly, in the historical present, the present tense is used to narrate events that occurred in the past.

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There are two common types of present tense form in most Indo-European languages: the present indicative (the combination of present tense and indicative mood) and the present subjunctive (the combination of present tense and subjunctive mood). The present tense is mainly classified into four parts or subtenses.

1. Simple present : The simple present tense is employed in a sentence to represent an action or event that takes place in the present regularly.
2. Present perfect : The present perfect tense is utilized for events that begin in the past and continue to the moment of speaking, or to express the result of a past situation.^[2]
3. Present continuous: The present continuous tense is used to describe an action that is happening right now.
4. Present perfect continuous

The present indicative of most verbs in modern English has the same form as the infinitive, except for the third-person singular form, which takes the ending -[e]s. The verb be has the forms am, is, are. For details, see English verbs. For the present subjunctive, see English subjunctive.

A number of multi-word constructions exist to express the combinations of present tense with the basic form of the present tense is called the simple present; there are also constructions known as the present progressive (or present continuous) (e.g. am writing), the present perfect (e.g. have written), and the present perfect progressive (e.g. have been writing).

Use of the present tense does not always imply the present time. In particular, the present tense is often used to refer to future events (I am seeing James tomorrow; My train leaves at 3 o'clock this afternoon). This is particularly the case in condition clauses and many other adverbial subordinate clauses: If you see him,...; As soon as they arrive... There is also the historical present, in which the present tense is used to narrate past events.

For details of the uses of present tense constructions in English, see Uses of English verb forms.

The Romance languages are derived from Latin, and in particular western Vulgar Latin. As a result, their usages and forms are similar.

In Wu Chinese, unlike other Sinitic languages (Varieties of Chinese), some tenses can be marked, including the present tense. For instance, in Suzhounese and Old Shanghainese, the word 哉 is used. The particle is placed at the end of a clause, and when a tense is referenced, the word order switches to SOV.^[3]

In a sentence such as "落雨了", it would be the perfective aspect in Standard Mandarin, whereas this would be analysed as the present tense in contemporary Shanghainese, where 哉 has underwent lenition to 了.

• Grammatical aspect
• Tense–aspect–mood
• Tense confusion