I'd have to agree with Peachy. In English we use verb forms to communicate a lot more than just whether something happened in the past, present or future. Dan showed off a few of the different ways verbs work for us. We often use verb tense to communicate the relationship between two events either cause and effect, or which one happened first, for example. Young children use fewer tenses, with more mistakes. But generally, anyone with a high school education uses most all of the tenses freely in speech as the situation calls for.

All of them. To tell the truth, we use them without even needing to think about it. It's not a case of choosing the "easiest" ones. What's more, if you avoid a so-called "difficult" tense, then we notice! By the way, which chart of tenses are you going by?

Hmmm... let me think. (1) They it is going to snow tonight. (2) It will snow all night. (3) We had a blizzard last week (4). I've been using the snowblower almost every day (5). If I had known we would be getting this much snow, I would have bought more gasoline for the snowblower. (6, 7) It snowed so much last week that I am running out of places to put the snow. (8). However, in English, so much of the meaning is conveyed by auxiliary words that I think _you can be understood very well_ without using the correct forms of verb tenses. This is awful grammar but perfectly understandable: "They say it is snowing tonight. It is snowing all night. We are having snow all last week. I am using the snowblower almost every day. If I know we are getting this much snow I buy more gasoline for the snowblower..."

Hi Igor, It's hard to give you an exact number because it depends largely on the amount of education your "Everyman" has. It also depends on how you define "tense", which is rather controversial. In any case, you might find this italki article helpful: http://www.italki.com/article/77/what-are-the-most-common-verb-tenses-used-in-conversational-english#.VNJtZMY-_RA. It's a good example of how some tenses are used very, very frequently, and others, much less so. good luck with your studies!

I think that the usual number of tenses that a person uses everyday would be 4 or 5. Present, Future, Past, Present Progressive. Present Perfect