Only 2 Verb Tenses in English and German?! Some Languages Have Zero

🎧📚 Supercharge Your Language Learning with Dual-Language Books and Audio!
At the Polyglot Gathering, I shared one of the most powerful tools that helped me learn over 30 languages — dual-language books combined with audio.

Most of us were taught that English has three tenses: past, present, and future. But linguists argue that morphologically — in terms of verb forms — English and German actually have only two: past and non-past.

In this video, I break down what counts as a morphological tense, explain why will go and werden gehen aren’t really future tenses, and show how Spanish and Portuguese pack more tense distinctions directly into verb endings. We’ll look at the 8 simple morphological tenses in Spanish and Portuguese — from hablo to hablaré to the rare hablare.

Then we go a step further: some languages, like Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese, don’t have verb tense at all. Instead, they rely on aspect markers and context words to express time.

By the end, you’ll see why the real question isn’t “What tense is this?” but rather “How is time being expressed in this language?”

🔗 Visit https://polyglotdreams.com to access my dual-language books with audio, including English–Italian, English–Vietnamese, English–Chinese, and more — based on my memoir A Life in 30 Languages.

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🌟 About Tim Keeley:
Tim Keeley, a seasoned professor and language enthusiast, brings four decades of experience living in Japan and mastering multiple Asian languages as well as many European languages.

🚀Website: https://polyglotdreams.com/

📧 email: timkeeley@polyglotdreams.com

👉Academia: https://kyusan-u.academia.edu/TimDeanKeeley

👉 BBC : https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150528-how-to-learn-30-languages

👉Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tim.keeley/

Видео Only 2 Verb Tenses in English and German?! Some Languages Have Zero канала Polyglot Dreams