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The Present Simple In Everyday Conversation

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Some students are so keen to know about English grammar and to learn the ‘rules’ that they forget something: grammar is just one ingredient used in communication to express yourself and understand others. To switch things around, here are some practical ways you can use the present simple verb form in small talk and everyday conversation.

[Btw if you’re new here, feel free to come on over to the Get Into English Facebook page!]

Giving personal information and describing your routine

I live in Melbourne (note: I’m living in Melbourne sounds like you see this as a temporary thing)
I have 2 brothers.
I’m married | single | divorced.
I’m about 178cm and weigh 97kg.
I was born in September, so I’m a virgo.

I wake up at 7 o’clock.
I take the car to work and get into the office at about 9.
At the weekend, I usually have breakfast on our balcony and talk with the kids.
I rarely go out during the week as I prefer to relax at home after work.
I sometimes go for a swim at the local pool.
I never eat breakfast at home as I’m often in a rush to get to catch the early train into town.

Talking about your job and responsibilities

I work for a large French company.
I work in South Melbourne.
I work at the building around the corner.
I’m in charge of the finance department.
I take care of the kids when Julie’s at work.
My work involves preparing for meetings and giving presentations.
I’m responsible for ensuring all invoices are tracked and accounted for.
I respond to customer inquiries about our products.
I prepare training programmes for managers in our Singapore office.

Talking About Your Likes And Dislikes

I really like | love U2.
I’m a big fan of Lost Girl.
I’m really into opera and classical music.
I don’t mind golf, though it’s a little boring.
I’m not into boxing, sorry.
I can’t stand Elton John.
I hate American football, what a dopey sport.
I enjoy listening to heavy metal and opera.
One of my favourite things to do during the week is to have my morning cup of coffee at Bill’s Cafe.

Giving Your Opinion

Note that verbs of opinion are usually in the simple form, while actions are in the continuous. For example:

I think he’s a wonderful person [opinion]
I’m thinking about my next holiday [action right now]

I think | reckon that President Obama is poor leader.
I believe he’s the best player of all time.
I don’t think he’ll do that.
Sorry, but I feel it’s not the right time to do this.
I don’t believe that’s true.
In my opinion, this just isn’t right.

What about Prague for our next holiday? What do you think | reckon?

Talking About People

He’s a great | fun | boring | ok guy.
She dances really well, I really like the way she moves.
My uncle’s great, a good laugh.
What surprises | interests me about him is his wicked sense of humour.
What I like | don’t like about her is that she’s so impatient.

Responding To Your Friend In Conversation

Yeah, definitely, that’s for sure.
I don’t think so at all.
Really? Why is that?
I totally agree/disagree.
I don’t agree at all.
You don’t believe that, do you?!
That’s a classic!
That’s great/wonderful/terrible!
I’m not so sure about that, Hank.

Texting/Telephoning/Emailing

Lots of phrases can be used in the present simple, just like in conversation:

What are you up to, John?
Do you fancy a drink?
How about we go for a swim later?
I look forward to it.
I can’t wait til later!
Let’s meet in front of the Swamp Hotel.

Speculating

He seems to be more tired than usual.
She can’t be American – I think she’s Australian with that hat!
He’s probably in his 30’s. He can’t be older.
She must be late – her car’s not here yet.

Talking About Facts

Paris has a population of 8 million people.
President Obushma is the most popular president since the 1980’s.
Victoria is located in southern Australia.

10 Present Simple Questions You Can Ask At A Party!

The list below shows you that you don’t need to use complicated questions or grammar to get conversation going!

  1. What do you do for fun? (=another way of asking what someone does in their free time).
  2. How do you spend your week? (this could be an easier question to ask if you’re not sure if the person has a job, as it opens up the conversation for them to answer how they wish)
  3. How often do you go out? Where do you like to hang out? 
  4. What’s your favourite film | TV show | song | book..? 
  5. Are you a morning person? 
  6. What superhero do you like the most? Why do you admire them? 
  7. What’s your morning ritual like? Do you spend half an hour in the shower? (this could be a fun way to ask a ‘boring’ question).
  8. Is there any celebrity that you look up to? 
  9. How do you spend a rainy day? 
  10. What’s your biggest addiction? (if you ask this in a fun way, they’ll probably talk about their coffee habit or spending time with their kids but maybe not something so serious)

So to sum up, you can see that you can do a lot with this basic verb form. After that, it’s a matter of improving your vocabulary! 

Some common ways to use the present simple in conversation! Click to Tweet

 

Present Simple in Conversation

Present Simple Or The Present Continuous?

Grammar And The Speaker’s Perspective

Sometimes you can use either the present simple or the present continuous, it just depends on how you see things at the time. For example, right now I am visiting family in Melbourne. To some people I’ve said:

“I’m visiting family” (I am here temporarily)

To other people I’ve said:

“I live in South Melbourne.” (this implies I live here permanently)

This might be because it’s easier to say I live here permanently than to then get all the follow up questions on where I *usually* live!

In a similar way, compare the businessman who travels between Paris and the Middle East:

“I live in Dubai.” (he says to a girl he just met in Dubai)

“I’m visiting Dubai.” (he says to a girl he likes back in Paris – he wants her to know this is just temporary!)

To sum up, grammar is just one ingredient in communicating your message, and it’s up to you to choose the verb forms which best fits your perspective or the message you wish to put across. There are other ingredients too, however, like how you say things, and what vocabulary you choose.

Finally, you can see today’s uses above of the present simple form as being about grammar, or you can learn the above sentences lexically.

In other words, instead of worrying about the grammatical rules, you could remember the above as phrases, with grammar ‘built in’.

“Not Pretty Enough”

Check out this Aussie song, which mostly uses the present simple form. Sing along or grab someone and dance..

Photo credits

Image Akk_rus
Licence CC by 2.0

Please feel free to check out the Get Into English Facebook page!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Francisco Javier says

    February 11, 2013 at 16:50

    Lots of useful phrases.

    At the end of the day, native speakers learn “phrases”, I mean, they don’t stop mid-sentence to see what tense they are using. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with some grammatical knowledge as long as you don’t become obsessed with it!

    I’m sharing this on Twitter. I only use it for that purpose!

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      February 13, 2013 at 10:01

      Hi Francisco

      Thanks a lot. I’ll add to it as well – there’s a few more things I can add (without it getting too long I hope 😉 )

      Reply
  2. Sergio Rodrigues says

    August 21, 2013 at 21:25

    Great post! Simple, short – but extremely efective. Congratulations!

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      August 25, 2013 at 12:19

      Thanks for the feedback, Sergio!

      Reply
  3. Sophie Heinz says

    September 16, 2013 at 13:48

    Hi David ,
    Wonderful stuff you’ve got here. I was wondering if you could help. I am currently helping some student with English Lsnguage in Germany . And was wondering if you could help me with some conversation topics to help the student understand the tenses. Have you got some materials you could send to me?
    Hope to hear from
    Sophie

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      September 17, 2013 at 03:50

      Hello Sophie

      Thanks for visiting the blog 🙂 What do you mean by ‘conversation topics to help understand the tenses’?

      I have some worksheets on various topics here which might help:

      http://getintoenglish.com/category/downloads/

      David

      Reply
  4. Amit Pandey says

    October 26, 2013 at 18:25

    Well David these ideas will definitely work and help me to help my students, thanks n really this blog is absolutely fabulous

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      October 26, 2013 at 21:29

      Hi Amit, thanks a lot for visiting 🙂

      If you have any special wish, feel free to suggest a topic that I can write on,

      David

      Reply
  5. Miss Lan says

    November 22, 2013 at 09:53

    This is really useful. I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of your posts in the future 🙂

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      November 24, 2013 at 21:54

      Hi Miss Lan

      Thanks for popping in – feel free to check out the articles in the ‘most commented’ box in the sidebar 🙂

      David

      Reply
  6. Shona says

    February 2, 2015 at 14:02

    This was a really great breakdown of the present simple in use. I’ll be using it with my students in class today.

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      February 3, 2015 at 02:22

      Hi Shona

      Thanks for your comment, and hope you can find other articles on here which your students might like 🙂

      Reply
  7. Fathi says

    May 2, 2020 at 20:04

    Well done, such a great effort 🙂

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      May 18, 2020 at 18:53

      Thank you Fathi!

      Reply
  8. Dav says

    April 3, 2021 at 01:56

    Very Nice blog and easy to understand…. Thank you sir

    Reply
    • David Sweetnam says

      April 3, 2021 at 21:12

      Hello Davinder

      Thanks for visiting the blog and for your suggestion too 🙂

      Reply

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