😲Languages Without Verb Tenses😲

 

Hi! The video I watched for this post is about verb tenses! Verb tenses allow us to use a specific tense for a verb to specify the time period of the action! In English, we have three tenses: past, present, and future. We covered tenses for a week in class, so watching this video was a good refresher. For the past tense form, you would add the suffix -ed to a verb like jump to make it jumped. If you add the word will, a modal auxiliary verb, to the verb stem jump, you create will jump, which is a simple example of a verb in the future tense. Some languages lacking verb tenses are Creole, Indonesian, Malaysian, and Chinese. Watching this video made me wonder if needing to figure out when something occurred is essential when conversing, and these languages are proof that it is not. These languages will utilize other words and expressions that allow you to understand when an action occurred. These languages will also utilize adverbs to add context to better understand when something happened. Below is an example from Indonesian. Notice how the adverbs in front of the verb “membayar” change the word’s aspect.

                            

                                             (Jorgensen 2:18-2:34)

                                                        (Jorgensen 2:41-2:48)

 

 

 

Jorgensen, Paul. “Languages Without Verb Tenses?!”. Youtube, uploaded by Langfocus 24 October 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XqdvarsGMU. Accessed 28 April 2023.