You can get by with only two main tenses – the past and the present/future: kaimasu covers 'buy' and 'will buy', kaimashita means 'bought'bought
The three main tenses are past, present, and future.
The Predicator comprises the clause's verbal group minus the Finite operator, and has four main functions: (1) to specify time reference relative to primary tense (secondary tense), (2) to specify other aspects or phases (seeming, trying, etc)., (3) to specify voice, and (4) to specify the process.
They also categorize tense in Chinese into primary tense, secondary tense, primary-secondary tense and secondary-secondary tense.
When I dropped by Tempe at about 1 PM, I realised I'd missed the main event: a tense confrontation between anti-racist protesters and a group of über-nationalists known as the Party for Freedom.
The main title music, a tense, hurtling piece, sets the tone of impending violence, and returns three times on the soundtrack.
As I entered the main gate my body tensed up.
Despite the clusters of people in Baghdad streets, and the several stores and sidewalk kebab stands opened on main thoroughfares, the atmosphere remained tense.
Flying to Iraq is no longer the corkscrew-landing adventure it was when the violence made even driving to the main airport, in Baghdad, a tense race through enemy territory.
Pelecanos's books never have movies far from their hearts; his characters talk about them as often as they talk about music or sports, and the central plot device of "King Suckerman" is a drive-in screening of a blaxploitation classic which brings all the main characters together for a tense showdown.
