English Tenses & Modals Cheat Sheet (A1-C2)

English Tenses, Conditionals & Modals – Cheat Sheet

Level	Time / Structure	Use	Form / Example
A1	Present Simple	Habits, routines, general truths	I eat breakfast at 7 am.
A2	Present Continuous	Actions in progress, planned future events	She is studying now.
B1	Present Perfect	Experience, relevance to present	I have visited London twice.
B2	Present Perfect Continuous	Ongoing actions from past to present	I have been studying for 2 hours.
A2	Past Simple	Completed past actions	They went to the cinema yesterday.
B1	Past Continuous	Actions in progress, often interrupted	I was watching TV when she called.
B2	Past Perfect	Action completed before another past action	She had finished her homework before dinner.
B2	Past Perfect Continuous	Duration before another past moment	I had been working for 3 hours before lunch.
A2	Future Simple (Will)	Spontaneous decisions, offers, promises	I will help you with that.
A2	Be going to	Plans, intentions, predictions with evidence	It’s going to rain.
B2	Future Continuous	Action in progress at a specific future time	I will be studying at 8 pm.
C1	Future Perfect	Action completed before a specific future time	By next week, I will have finished the book.
C2	Future Perfect Continuous	Duration of action up to a future time	By 10 pm, I will have been studying for 3 hours.
B1	Zero Conditional	General truths / scientific facts	If you heat water, it boils.
B1	First Conditional	Real future possibilities	If it rains, I will take an umbrella.
B2	Second Conditional	Unreal / hypothetical present or future	If I won the lottery, I would buy a house.
C1	Third Conditional	Unreal past situations	If I had studied, I would have passed.
C2	Mixed Conditional	Hypothetical past affecting present/future	If I had studied harder, I would be more confident now.
A2	Can / Could	Ability / possibility / polite requests	I can swim. / Could you help me?
B1	May / Might	Possibility	It might rain tomorrow.
B1	Must / Should	Obligation / advice	You must wear a helmet. / You should eat healthier.
C1	Would	Polite requests, hypothetical situations	I would help if I could.
C2	Advanced Modals	Speculation, deduction, criticism	He must have forgotten the meeting.