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samustoday at 5:51 AM1 replyview on HN

A more natural way to see it is that Chinese does not really have tenses in the first place.


Replies

jan_m_savagetoday at 6:29 AM

Actually, it does, it's just not so fixed about them.

For instance: "I have gone", "I had gone" are said the same way, but there is a slight difference when you say "I have been going" and there is really no way to say "I had been going" unless contextual tokens are added onto.