Compound tenses

The more complex tenses in Indo-European languages are formed by combining a particular tense of the verb with certain verbal auxiliaries, the most common of which are various forms of "be", various forms of "have", and modal auxiliaries such as English will. Romance and Germanic languages often add "to hold", "to stand", "to go", or "to come" as auxiliary verbs. For example, Spanish uses estar ("to be") with the present gerund to indicate the present continuous. Portuguese uses ter ("to have") with the past participle for the perfect aspect. Swedish uses kommer att ("come to") for the simple future. These constructions are often known as complex tenses or compound tenses (a more accurate technical term is periphrastic tenses).

Examples of some generally recognized Indo-European and Finnish tenses using the verb "to go" are shown in the table below.


tense Germanic: English:
to go Romance: Spanish:
ir Romance: Portuguese:
ir Germanic: Swedish:
att gå Finno-ugric: Finnish:
mennä Slavic: Bulgarian:
отивам/отида* notes
Present simple I go. (Yo) voy. (Eu) vou. Jag går. Menen. Аз отивам. In most languages this is used for most present indicative uses. In English, it's used mainly to express habit or ability ("I play the guitar").
Present continuous I am going. Estoy yendo. (Eu) estou indo/ estou a ir. Jag är gående*, jag går. Olen menossa. Аз отивам This form is prevalent in English to express current action, but is absent or rarer in other Indo-European languages, which prefer the simple present tense. Continuous is more an aspect than a tense and is included here only because of its prevalence in English to substitute for the Simple Present.
Present perfect I have gone. (Yo) he ido. (Eu) tenho ido. Jag har gått. Olen mennyt. Аз съм отишъл. Common past compound tense. In some languages indicates recent past, in others indicates an unknown past time.
Preterite I went. (Yo) fui. (Eu) fui. Jag gick. Menin. Аз отидох. In English (unlike in some languages with aorist tenses), this implies that the action took place in the past and that it is not taking place now.
Imperfect I used to go. (Yo) iba. (Eu) ia.
Past continuous I was going. (Yo) estaba yendo (Eu) estava indo/ estava a ir. Jag var gående**, jag gick. Olin menossa. Аз отивах.
Pluperfect (past perfect) I had gone. (Yo) había ido. (Eu) fora. Jag hade gått. Olin mennyt. Аз бях отишъл. This expresses that an action was completed before some other event.
Future I will go. (Yo) iré. (Eu) irei. Jag ska gå. Menen. Аз ще отида. This can be used to express intention, prediction, and other senses. In Finnish there is no future tense; when speaking of the future, the present tense is used.
Future perfect I will have gone. (Yo) habré ido. (Eu) terei ido. Jag kommer att ha gått. Olen mennyt. Аз ще съм отишъл. This expresses a past action in a hypothetical future. As Finnish has no future tense, present perfect is used.

* отивам and отида are two different verbs, both meaning "to go", and both can be conjugated in all the above tenses, but in order best to preserve the English and Bulgarian meaning, only some of their forms are shown.
** This only works with adverbs, such as "I was going when someone suddenly stopped me"; not just "I was going to their house".