Chinese Past, Present and Future Tense for beginners

Unlike English, Chinese doesn’t modify words depending on the tense, instead time words are added to express whether an action is in the past, present or future. These time words are often adverbs but can phrases or nouns.

In English you might say:

Present	I’m playing basketball
Past	I played basketball

Notice how we modify the word play depending on the tense.

In Chinese the word doesn’t change, that is to say the verb “play” doesn’t change depending on if is in the past, present or future. Here are the Chinese equivalents of the above English sentences:

Present	“I’m playing basketball” 我wǒ打dǎ篮lán球qiú (wǒ dǎ lán​qiú) (I + play + basketball)
Past	“I played basketball” 我wǒ打dǎ篮lán球qiú了le (wǒ dǎ lán​qiú le) (I + play+ basketball)

Here you see that the word for “play”, that is 打dǎ (dǎ), does not change between the two sentences, instead the 了 character was added to the end of the sentence to indicate that the action has already happened.

Past Tense in Chinese

In Chinese the most common way to say that something has already happened is to add 了 to the end of the sentence. Here are some examples:

Present Tense	Past Tense
“I go” 我wǒ去qù (wǒ qù)	“I went” 我wǒ去qù了le (wǒ qù le) (literally: I + go + past tense character)
“I buy” 我wǒ买mǎi (wǒ mǎi)	“I bought” 我wǒ买mǎi了le (wǒ mǎi le) (literally: I + buy + past tense character)
“I eat” 我wǒ吃chī (wǒ chī)	“I ate” 我wǒ吃chī了le (wǒ chī le) (literally: I + eat + past tense character)

You can think of 了 as meaning “already”, for example:

• I went already 我wǒ去qù了le (wǒ qù le)
• I bought already 我wǒ买mǎi了le (wǒ mǎi le)
• I ate already 我wǒ吃chī了le (wǒ chī le)

Although we have introduced 了 to indicate past tense, it is more accurately being used in this situation to indicate a change of state, for example 我wǒ吃chī了le (wǒ chī le) indicates that I hadn’t eaten and now I have.

Translating 了 as meaning “already” isn’t a textbook translation, but is something you may hear some Chinese native speakers actually say when they speak English; more specifically rather than saying “I already ate”, they are likely to say “I ate already”, placing “already” at the end of the sentence where the 了 would appear.

Present Tense in Chinese

In Chinese there are several ways to say you are doing something right now, in the present:

English	Chinese (Pinyin)
in the process of	正zhèng在zài (zhèng​zài)
just	正zhèng (zhèng)
in the middle of	在zài (zài)

Here are some examples:

I’m in the process of cooking	我wǒ正zhèng在zài做zuò饭fàn (wǒ zhèng​zài zuò​fàn) (literally: I + right now + cook + rice)
I’m just cooking	我wǒ正zhèng做zuò饭fàn (wǒ zhèng zuò​fàn) (literally: I + right now + cook + rice)
I’m in the middle of cooking	我wǒ在zài做zuò饭fàn (wǒ zài zuò​fàn) (literally: I + right now + cook + rice)
I’m cooking	我wǒ做zuò饭fàn (wǒ zuò​fàn) (literally: I + right now + cook + rice)

Note that in the final example, we don’t add any word, here the tense is implied based on the context of the situation. Depending on the context 我wǒ做zuò饭fàn (wǒ zuò​fàn) could mean “I’m going to cook”, “I am cooking” or “I will cook”.

Future Tense in Chinese

To say you are going to do something in the future, there are a few different words that can be used:

English	Chinese (Pinyin)
want, have, will	要
will	会
immediately, at once	马上

Example sentences:

I want to go to the park	我wǒ要yào去qù公gōng园yuán (wǒ yào qù gōng​yuán) (I + want to + go + park)
I will go	我wǒ会huì去qù (wǒ huì qù) (I + will + go)
I am immediately coming	我wǒ马mǎ上shàng来lái (wǒ mǎ​shàng lái) (I + immediately + come)

The importance of context

Chinese is a highly contextual language, so the meaning of a sentence can definitely differ depending on the context. Let’s take again our phrase 我wǒ打dǎ篮lán球qiú (wǒ dǎ lán​qiú) phrase; depending on the context or situation, this could mean either “I play basketball” or “I’m playing basketball”, for example:

Present Tense

你nǐ在zài干gàn什shén么me
nǐ zài gànshénme
What are you doing?

我wǒ打dǎ篮lán球qiú
wǒ dǎ lánqiú
I’m playing basketball

Future Tense

你nǐ做zuò什shén么me了le？?
nǐ zuò shénme le?
What were you doing?

我wǒ打dǎ篮lán球qiú
wǒ dǎ lánqiú
I was playing basketball

Chinese is a highly contextual language. The tense of a sentence can be implied and doesn’t need to be explicitly stated by adding a time word. Out of context it is not always possible to understand if the action described has happened, is happening or will happen.

Wrapping it up

The best take away from this post on tense is to remember which time words are used in which situations;

Tense	Words
Past	了le (le)
Present	正zhèng在zài (zhèng​zài) 在zài (zài) 正zhèng (zhèng)
Future	要yào (yào) 会huì (huì) 马mǎ上shàng (mǎ​shàng)