The grammar as a map
Two pictures of the same material: the tenses on a timeline, and all 131 topics arranged by level. Every box is a link.
The tenses on a timeline
The axis is time. On the left, what was already over when the events being told happened; in the middle, now; on the right, what is still to come. Each tense hangs at the point it says something about — “future” is not a chapter heading here but a stop, the same stop at which each language puts something different.
Below it are the forms that cannot sit at any stop. A future form for a guess, a past form for politeness, a conditional whose form is dictated by the condition: the name then says nothing about the point in time, and that is not a special case but half the reason tenses are hard.
Press a level to show only that level; press it again to bring everything back.
Before the past1
What was already over by the time the story got there.
The past4
Something that happened, finished, and stays where it happened.
Past linked to the present1
Something that began or happened earlier and still holds or matters now.
The present1
What holds at the moment, what is under way, or what is always the case.
The future1
What is still to come — promised, planned or merely guessed at.
Completed in the future1
What will already be finished by some point in the future.
If and would3
Here the condition decides the form, not the position on the clock.
Time in name only2
A future form for a guess, a past form for politeness: the label says nothing about when.
Which form when1
Topics that explain not one form but the choice between two.
All the grammar, by level
Now the level is the axis: from A1 to C2, one band per level, with the areas stacked beneath one another. So one picture shows what each level adds to each area — “what does C2 add to the verb?” cannot be answered at a glance anywhere else.
An empty cell is information, not a gap: that there is nothing on the passive at A1 is part of the picture.