please help me decide the tenses of these examples

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

I would be grateful if someone could help me analyse these examples and tell me what tense, or anything else related to form that is relevant. I am thinking the first one is possibly present perfect?

Tom: Have you ever been to France?
Dave: Yes, I’ve visited Paris a few times

He must be English.

If I won the lottery, I’d buy a new car.

Thanks Peter

2

Hi Peter,

Are you by any chance doing (or about to do) a TEFL course? These sound like the sorts of questions that are often asked at the start of some TEFL courses.

Anyway, yes, both sentences in (1) use the present perfect simple.

Sentence (2) uses the modal auxiliary verb ‘must’ along with the base form of the verb ‘be’, and in this case ‘must’ is used to draw a conclusion rather than to state obligation.

Sentence (3) is a so-called type 2 conditional sentence, and refers to the (possible/theoretical) future. The IF half of the sentence states the condition, and the second half refers to the result should the condition be fulfilled. Even though the sentence refers to the future, the verb form (not tense!) in the IF half is the same form that is used for the past simple (won). The other half of the sentence contains the modal ‘would’ and the base form of the verb ‘buy’. Basically, a type 2 conditional is used when the speaker views the condition as theoretically possible, but not particularly probable.

[color=darkblue]__________________________________________________________________
[size=75]“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt[/size]

3

Thanks for your reply

I am about to do a TEFL course and these questions form part of the pre course research task. In respect of question 2 I understand that the modal auxiliary is used, however what tense is it? It is obviously present tense – but which one? As for question 3, I looked on Wikipedia and also came to the conclusion about conditionals – but what specific tense is it? It obviously refers to a hypothetical future – but what specific future tense?

I looked in a grammar book and apart from question 1, the other examples don’t seem to have the required structures to make any of the tenses listed? Any idea what specific tenses these refer to? I am really stuck on this.
Thanks Peter