In Chinese, tense does not exist. When I first learned this fact, I was utterly confused. How do people know how to distinguish between past, present, and future without tense? Later, I learned that the concept of time is actually built into time words (yesterday, tomorrow, etc.) instead. Still, the thought of not having tense is something my English-language brain can’t handle. Why? Tense is important because we use it to signal what happens when. There is also a thing called aspect that goes along with tense. Think of aspect as a tense sharpener: it lends additional meaning to tense. Tense and aspect play a vital role in constructing meaning. In a couple weeks, I will talk about what our tenses and aspects can tell us. First, I want to make sure that you have the background knowledge and vocabulary to understand. (No, really. I’m going to throw a bunch of terminology at you next and you’re probably going to hate me for it, but I promise you’ll thank me for it later.)
What are the tenses and aspects?
Since tense and aspect can get a bit complicated, I created a chart. It should be pretty self-explanatory. The only term that needs defining is PP, which stands for past participle. The past participle is generally formed by adding -ed to the end of verbs. There are irregular verbs, however, that have all sorts of different endings (e.g., written, run, taken, eaten, been, and more.) Past participles are often used as adjectives as well, so I guarantee that you are far more familiar with them than you may realize.
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