Present with adverbs of frequency

Improve your English today at ANGLOPOD.COM. Hi everyone, I’m Dan and today we’re going to look at how we use the present tense, both simple and continuous, with adverbs of frequency in English. This will help us understand English tenses better.

Let’s start with an example to see what we mean. “I ALWAYS DO my homework”. The adverb of frequency here is ALWAYS and it comes before the verb DO, which is in the present simple form. So, we NORMALLY PUT adverbs of frequency before the verb in English. That’s another example right there! NORMALLY PUT. So, you could say “I ALWAYS DO”, “I SOMETIMES DO”, “I RARELY DO” or “I NEVER DO”, for example. That’s an easy rule to remember.

However, if the verb is BE then the adverb of frequency goes after, like this: “I AM ALWAYS a good student”. So, BE followed by the adverb of frequency. “I AM SOMETIMES a good student”, “I AM RARELY a good student”, “I AM NEVER a good student”.

However, we also use the adverb of frequency ALWAYS with the present continuous, but it has a specific meaning. For example, you can say: “I AM ALWAYS FORGETTING my homework”. This means it is a repeated action I do and I wish I didn’t! It sounds like a bad habit. Something you regret and would like to change about your personality. You could also say: “I AM ALWAYS BITING my nails” or “I AM ALWAYS LOSING my phone”.

Also, we can use the adverb of frequency NEVER with the present continuous and this too has a specific meaning. For example, you can say: “I AM NEVER DOING that again” or “I AM NEVER GOING there again”. We use NEVER with present continuous here to express frustration and dislike of something. Something that you did once but never want to repeat!

If you ARE ALWAYS a good student, then I’m sure you NEVER FORGET to go to ANGLOPOD.COM to practise your English! See you soon!

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