# Is it true some languages don't have certain verb tenses? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 17, 2004, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637 "2004-02-17T08:50:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/21 "2004-02-19T04:58:49Z")
Hebrew has three tenses. Three. That’s it. None of this imperfect or auxiliaries. Past, present, future. That’s it. Future tense can also be used for the imperative. Alas, Hebrew has many other odd facets to confuse and bewilder the naive student. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Already\_in\_Use](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@Already\_in\_Use](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Already_in_Use)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/22 "2004-02-19T08:55:25Z")
> [@Eva Luna](#): > > And what’s even more fun is that the present tense f the verb “to be” is rarely used at all, except for emphasis. So you end up saying really deep things like “I American.” Interestingly enough, ancient Egyptian is somewhat the same. There is a verb _wnn_ “to be,” but generally, substantival, adjectival, and adverbial sentences are formed nonverbally. I’m not even sure whether those terms for sentence types are the commonly used linguistic ones, as every Middle Egyptian scholar seems to use different terms for the same things, but here are some examples: Adverbial sentence, expressing circumstance: _jw.j m pr_ “I am in the house,” with _m pr_ meaning “in the house,” _jw_, an untranslatable particle, and the suffix pronoun _j_, “I/me/my/mine.” These sentences can also be formed with the particle _mk_ (roughly “Look, dude”) in the place of _jw_, and in that case, a different pronoun class (dependent) is used. Substantival sentence, associating one entity with another: _ntf nb pr pw_ “He [is the lord of the house,” _ntf_ being the independent pronoun form of “he,” _nb pr_ meaning “lord of the house,” and _pw_ (pronounced “poo” by Egyptologists, amusingly enough) being a particle roughly equivalent to “it is”/“he is”/“we are”/etc. _Pw_, however, is left out when the subject of the sentence is in the first or second person. In an interesting parallel to the Russian example, the unexpected use or omission of _pw_ is thought to convey some sort of isolating contrast or emphasis, expressed in English with vocal tone/volume. Adjectival sentence, expressing property: _nfr sw_ “he is beautiful/good,” with _nfr_ meaning “beautiful/good” and _sw_ being the dependent pronoun for “he/him.” When the subject is in the first person, the substantival sentence form is used: _jnk nfr_, which seems to literally mean “I am the/a good/beautiful one.” [that was somewhat of a hijack, but hey, one doesn’t often get a chance to make good use of one’s knowledge of a completely dead language…] ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/23 "2004-02-19T14:02:07Z")
> [@Capt. Caustic](#): > > So who’s written work on this subject? It interests me greatly. They say thoughts lead to feelings; how does language map to thought? It takes me back to Orwell’s 1984, where the government was working to control the people by paring down the language, eliminating words such as “freedom.” > > Does the Japanese lack of future tense tend to steer them away from emphasizing the future as much as English speakers? (Naturally they can think about and discuss the future without the tense). Maybe the language evolved that way from the culture, but does language create a cultural inertia once its in place? This is a subject of some debate in linguistic circles, and I hope I can manage to explain it correctly. But if I make a mistake, I’m sure someone will correct me. Anyway, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf), also known as the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis, holds that what language we speak has a profound affect on what kind of thoughts we have. If a language does not have a term for a particular concept, it may be difficult or even impossible for a person who speaks only that language to understand the concept. This hypothesis, at least in its strong form, is no longer in favor in the linguistic community. Most linguists would grant that language has some influence on thought, but few today would say that it actually determines thought or that the thought and the word used to express that thought are inseperable/identical. I work teaching English to Japanese-speakers, and they do often have trouble learning English grammatical rules that have no close Japanese equivelant. However, they rarely seem puzzled by the _ideas_, unless they’ve been subjected to an inadequate or confusing explanation. It’s just difficult for them to remember how to properly express these ideas in English. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2004, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/24 "2004-02-21T07:59:44Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Hebrew has three tenses. Three. That’s it. None of this imperfect or auxiliaries. Past, present, future. That’s it. Future tense can also be used for the imperative. Actually, it’s even worse than that - what passes for a “present tense” in Hebrew is, grammatically, a noun-form. “I work” is, really, “I am a worker”. That leaves only two true verb tenses - past and future - and, in order to confuse things completely, these were **interchangeable** in Biblical (although not in Modern) Hebrew! Some of you will remember from Sunday School all the sentences in the bible starting with “And…” - “And god said, let there be light…”. Well, in the original hebrew, what it says there is “_And will say_ god, let there be light…” - the _And_ prefix renders the future into the past. The opposite also worked in biblical hebrew - “_And said_ you onto them…” really means -“you shall say”. So, to summarize - Hebrew really has only two tenses, and they were interchangeable by just using a prefix (although this usage HAS died out in Modern Hebrew). > [@](#): > > Alas, Hebrew has many other odd facets to confuse and bewilder the naive student Like the fact that verbs can take up to seven different forms of conjugation, giving them active, causitive, negative, reflexive and several forms of passive meanings, depending on the form used - but that’s a whole new kettle of fish… Dani ---
**Author:** ![UselessGit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/74df32/32.png) [@UselessGit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UselessGit)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2004, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/25 "2004-02-21T14:40:20Z")
Well, in Icelandic there are just two tenses: The past and present tense. Icelandic however has six moods: The Indicative is the most common one and is mainly used in statements: – Hann talar mikið - “he talks much” – þið lesið bókina - “you read the book” The Subjunctive is used to express hope, wish or something unreal: – Þú læsir bókina er þú gætir - “you would read the book if you could” – Ef ég væri sterkari lemdi ég hann - “if I was stronger I would hit him” Subjunctive is also used with some conjunctions and in indirect speech: – Þó hún sofi mikið er hún alltaf þreytt - “though she sleeps much she is always tired” – Hann sagði að skipið færi á morgun - “he said that the ship would leave tomorrow” The Imperative is used for commands and normally it is formed by the suffixes -du, -ðu or -tu, but they are derived from the personal pronoun þú “you”: – Lestu bókina! - “read the book!” – Komdu strax! - “come immediately!” – Farðu! - “go!”. The imperative plural has the same form as indicative and subjunctive: – Lesið bókina! - “read the book!” The present participle is formed by the suffix -andi and is uninflected: – Þú kemur gangandi - “you come walking” – Sýnið gangandi vegfarendum tillitssemi - “pay attention to walking passers-by”. The past participle is formed with auxiliaries like hafa “have” and geta “can”: – Ég hef lesið bókina - “I have read the book” – Ég get lesið bókina - “I can read the book” In the passive voice the past participle agrees with the nominative subject in gender, number and case: – Þeir (m. pl. nom) voru handteknir (m. pl. nom.) - “they were arrested” – Þær (f. pl. nom.) voru handteknar (f. pl. nom.) - “they were arrested” The Infinitive is formed by the suffix -a: – Lesa - “to read”, koma - “to come”, skrifa - “to write”. To make things interesting, nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals are declined for four cases; nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Words are normally in the nominative unless they are governed by some other word or constituent in the sentence. Prepositions and verbs can assign accusative, dative and genitive and nouns can assign genitive. So the word “horse” in Icelandic would be hestur, hest, hesti, hests, hesturinn, hestinum or hestsins, depending on the sentence… which should answer the OP’s question… or not - I got a little bit caried away, it seems. …this has been “Icelandic and you”, tune in again tomorrow for more obscure grammar lessons you didn’t ask for. ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2004, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/26 "2004-02-21T15:19:37Z")
German lacks a true differentiation between present (I eat the pants) and present perfect (I am eating the pants). For both, you’d just say “Ich esse die Hose.” ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Griffin-Kentzel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_griffin-kentzel/32/14787_2.png) [@Larry\_Griffin-Kentzel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Griffin-Kentzel)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/27 "2004-02-22T04:25:12Z")
Questions with factual answers belong in [**General Questions**](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=3). I’ll move this for you. **Cajun Man** for the SDMB ---
**Author:** ![MadScientistMatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@MadScientistMatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadScientistMatt)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/28 "2004-02-22T04:52:41Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > This is a subject of some debate in linguistic circles, and I hope I can manage to explain it correctly. But if I make a mistake, I’m sure someone will correct me. Anyway, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf), also known as the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis, holds that what language we speak has a profound affect on what kind of thoughts we have. If a language does not have a term for a particular concept, it may be difficult or even impossible for a person who speaks only that language to understand the concept. Well, languages do tend to have some specialized words that fit their culture. I’ve recently bought a book listing 200 Japanese words which do not have English equivalents - or the English equivalents do not have the same connotation - which seems to do a decent job explaining the history behind these concepts in English. I’d say it’s probably a good thing that English doesn’t have a word for _karoshi_… ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/29 "2004-02-22T06:18:14Z")
> [@MadScientistMatt](#): > > I’d say it’s probably a good thing that English doesn’t have a word for _karoshi_… This is drifting away from the op, but there are two types of such words: ones that can be easily translated with few words. _Karoushi_ can be addressed easily by “death by exhaustion/overwork”. There are however concepts and constructions that are extremely hard if not impossible to translate. Give a shot at: _Sasuga, Cecil Adams da!_ Or how about the distinction between: _Okutte moratta_ vs. _okutte itadaita_ vs. _okutte kureta_ vs. _okutte kudasatta_. They all translate in English as “(someone) sent it for me”, but the nuances are completely lost in translation. (ha!) ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/30 "2004-02-22T14:38:55Z")
I’m going to mention the concept of “saudade” which is so central to portuguese culture, and which, not only can’t be translated accurately in french (or english, for that matter), but also apparently can’t really be understood by non portuguese-speaking people (at least not by me). By the way, french, like AFAIK other romance languages has more tenses than english, and I don’t think that lacking, say, the “subjunctive imperfect” prevent english speakers from conveying exactly what they mean. At the contrary, french indeed lacks progressive tenses, like the simple “I was eating when” which must be expressed otherwise, for instance “j’etais en train de manger quand” which litterally would be translated “I was in the process of to eat when” or possibly plainly “je mangeais quand” that I can’t translate litterally since…english is lacking this tense! (which has a broader use than simply expressing incompleted actions in the past). ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/31 "2004-02-22T15:35:24Z")
> [@Capt. Caustic](#): > > So who’s written work on this subject? It interests me greatly. See Frederick Bodmer’s [_The Loom of Language_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/039330034X/qid=1077463724/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-6671478-1409705?v=glance&s=books), especially Chapter X. It should be available in your public library, or in a large bookstore. Further, I’d recommend the books of MIT linguist/cognitive specialist [Steven Pinker](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dstripbooks%26field-keywords%3DSteven%252520Pinker%26store-name%3Dbooks/102-6671478-1409705), especially _Words and Rules_ and _The Language Instinct_. Lastly, David Crystal’s [_The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521559677/qid=1077463775/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-6671478-1409705?v=glance&s=books) is an excellent resource on this topic and all matters linguistic. ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/32 "2004-02-22T21:26:13Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > I’m sitting there eating, and I’m not even half done when in walks Nicely-Nicely Jones. And he says to me, “Youse had better find that dough–or another woild in which to live”. Sounds exactly like Dublinese. There is also the construction “I am after verbing it”. He’s after telling me a story, I am after eating my dinner, etc. I don’t know if they are legit variations or just awful grammar. I am fairly sure that “I would’ve lovin’ it!” is just horrible horrible grammar. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2004, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/33 "2004-02-22T22:54:49Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I’m going to mention the concept of “saudade” which is so central to portuguese culture, and which, not only can’t be translated accurately in french (or english, for that matter), but also apparently can’t really be understood by non portuguese-speaking people (at least not by me). This strikes me as an example of a very common type of cultural particularism or mystification. I am prepared to bet that in any particular context, the word _saudade_ can be perfectly adequately rendered in English, whether as “nostalgia”, “wistful longing” or some other phrase. _Saudade_ is no more “untranslateable” than, say, the English word “squeamish”, and there’s nothing in a Portuguese or Brazilian person’s brain that allows him to understand saudade where I cannot, while he is doomed to gape uncomprehendingly at the concept of squeamishness. My point, such as it is, is that while the target language may lack a word with exactly the same semantic content as the word in the source language, it is always possible to find a good translation in any given context. The only exception I can think of is where a word bears a double meaning in the context, and no equivalent double meaning is available in the target language. > [@](#): > > plainly “je mangeais quand” that I can’t translate litterally since…english is lacking this tense! (which has a broader use than simply expressing incompleted actions in the past). What’s wrong with your own literal translation: “I was eating when …”? As has been pointed out above, English has exactly two tenses, but our lack of a future tense is no obstacle at all to our talking about future time. Similarly for progressive “tenses”. **Iteki** , your remark reminds me of the time I was playing Yahtzee (a poker-dice game) with an English chap and his father. The father rolled the dice, started looking at them and said “what am I after?”, to which I replied “you’re after throwing the dice!” Okay, it was funny at the time. ---
**Author:** ![seaworthy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@seaworthy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seaworthy)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2004, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/34 "2004-02-23T00:51:41Z")
As my French teacher was very fond of saying, the present tense in French has 3 possible translations in English. For example, the verb manger. Je mange can be translated as- 1. I eat 2. I am eating 3. I do eat And I’m pretty sure English has a subjunctive tense, although no one ever uses it. The grammatically correct way to express desire is “I wish I **were** an Oscar Meyer weiner.” But no one says that anymore. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2004, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/35 "2004-02-23T01:37:43Z")
> [@seaworthy](#): > > As my French teacher was very fond of saying, the present tense in French has 3 possible translations in English. For example, the verb manger. Je mange can be translated as- > > 1. I eat > 2. I am eating > 3. I do eat > > And I’m pretty sure English has a subjunctive tense, although no one ever uses it. The grammatically correct way to express desire is “I wish I **were** an Oscar Meyer weiner.” But no one says that anymore. English does have a subjunctive mood, although it is somewhat moribund. There is a useful distinction between “I wish I were” and “I wish I was”, which is worth maintaining, in my opinion, and so I tend to use it as appropriate. Whether this makes me sound like an affected ass is not really for me to say. By the way, is there really a difference in meaning between “I eat” and “I do eat” as translations for “je mange”? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2004, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/36 "2004-02-23T05:32:16Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > By the way, is there really a difference in meaning between “I eat” and “I do eat” as translations for “je mange”? Sorry, for the hijack, but : since I discovered that “I do eat” was sometimes used, I assumed, for some reason, that it was more emphatic than “I eat” (more or less similar to : “I eat, really!!”). But you seem to state there’s no real difference. So, was I wrong in my assumption? ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2004, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/37 "2004-02-23T06:15:44Z")
_Saudade_ was the word that immediately came to my mind, too. I originally heard it explained as “that feeling you get when you walk into a room and smell a smell and it instantly takes you back to someplace you haven’t been in years”. Which is perfectly understandable to this non-Portuguese speaker, even if it takes me 27 times longer to say it. **Iteki** : > [@](#): > > Sounds exactly like Dublinese. There is also the construction “I am after verbing it”. He’s after telling me a story, I am after eating my dinner, etc. I don’t know if they are legit variations or just awful grammar. Perfectly legit in Hiberno-English. They’re just literal translation from the Irish _Tá mé tar éis…_ ---
**Author:** ![trabi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@trabi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabi)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2004, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/38 "2004-02-23T08:41:37Z")
Just for the record, Hungarian doesn’t have a perfect tense either. Although in a lot of situations the concept of an action being complete can be expressed using the verb prefix _meg_, this is more akin to a phrasal verb in English (for example: enni = to eat, megenni = to eat /sg/ up). The Hungarians seem to get by fine using the aforementioned Runyan method… ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2004, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/39 "2004-02-23T15:24:20Z")
> [@](#): > > and present perfect (I am eating the pants). That’s present **progressive**. Present perfect would be “I have eaten the pants.” ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2004, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637/40 "2004-02-23T15:31:03Z")
> [@seaworthy](#): > > And I’m pretty sure English has a subjunctive tense, although no one ever uses it. The grammatically correct way to express desire is “I wish I **were** an Oscar Meyer weiner.” But no one says that anymore. I do, and it drives me bonkers when other people don’t. We’ve got a subjunctive, guys, and it has a purpose, so use it! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-true-some-languages-dont-have-certain-verb-tenses/229637.md?page=3)