Present Tense
There are two different uses of present tense in English. The first use is for things that happen on a regular basis or to express a fact. That’s called the simple present.
Shimada-san writes letters.
Nakamura-san eats sushi every day.
Ice melts above 0° Celsius.
If you want to describe something that is happening right now, you use the present progressive form.
Shimada-san is writing a letter.
Nakamura-san is eating sushi.
The ice is melting.
This same distinction exists in Japanese, although the progressive form is used much more. What we would call simple present is actually called non-past in Japanese; it can also be used as future tense. The simple present is the simplest to learn, so let’s start with that.
Simple Present Tense
Group 1: 
dropping verbs
- Change the
sound to 
. - For positive sentences, add
. - For negative sentences, add
.
Here is how you work with the verb in “Shimada-san writes letters.”
- The verb for “to write” is
. - Changing the sound of to .
The verb is now
. - Adding the suffix , you get
.
The whole sentence becomes
. If you wanted to say “Shimada-san
doesn’t write letters,” you would add the suffix and
get the sentence 
Group 2: 
dropping verbs
- Drop the
completely. - For positive sentences, add .
- For negative sentences, add .
So, for the verb in “Nakamura-san eats sushi every day,”
(
means every day)
- The verb for “to eat” is
. - Drop the , leaving you with .
- Add to get .
The whole sentence becomes
If
you wanted to say that “Nakamura-san doesn’t eat sushi
every day,” you would use the suffix and
get the sentence
Group 3: 
and 
These verbs drop (like group 2) and
change the sound to an sound
(like group 1):
- The verb becomes
/.
- The verb becomes /