Another idea is to learn the contrasting uses of two tenses together e.g. present perfect simple and present perfect continuous, or simple past and present perfect. There are many exercises on internet pages which help you to distinguish the uses of two tenses e.g. www.englishpage.com If you can find context-based material, that's even better than dry grammar exercises.

You practise, practise and practise. There is a reason behind each verb tense, so don't be tempted into substituting simpler tenses - native speakers do hear your mistakes! When you speak, you will be using a certain timeframe, and that helps you use the right tenses. For example, a story in English set in the past uses past tenses... it's really that simple. Here's a tip for sounding more natural: very English sentence needs a subject and a verb. Your question should be, "How can I effectively remember the English verb tenses? How can I use them?" Without a subject (I/you/we/etc), a question like "How to remember...?" immediately shows that you're non-native. Beware of translation errors like this.

Generally English has 12 if I don't remember it wrong. Some will say more than that number I think. So 3 major stages of time: Past, Present and Future. Each one has 4 tenses which are Simple, Continuous, Perfect, Perfect Continuous. They are not used equally often. The best way I think to learn these tenses and know how to correctly use them in sentence constructing is using the tense chart. Check this one out: http://www.easypacelearning.com/all-lessons/grammar/1198-12-verb-tenses-and-their-usage . But in real life conversation, people tend not to care much about the grammar stuff since as long as they fully convey the ideas, it's good. But in certain cases, using wrong tenses can lead to misunderstanding. Hope this helps! :D