Lesson 5: Simple Tenses & The Particle 'do'

Veni, Vidi, Vici?

Here I/we may introduce to you simple tenses. And not just 'simple' as in they're easy, but they're kinda named that too.

Present Simple

You may already know this.

Lënnen eldib ('I eat')- this may be in the present simple tense.

-

Past Simple

I ate - in English, ed often marks the simple past tense. In Litish, something similar. d! Thumbs up? Thumb?

I eat - Lënnen eldib

I ate - ?

Nope, not Lënnen eldibd. You could try saying that out though. When an unmarked (or marked, maybe) verb ends with a consonant, you could remove the consonant. If it ends with more than one consonant, don't get rid of both. Add an o before adding the d, unless the other consonant is an n. If it is, just add a d. If it's a double n, remove one n and add a d.

I ate - Lënnen eldid

-

Future Simple

In English, we may construct this with other verbs- I will go, I am going to go- I am going to eat, I will eat. In Litish, r!

I eat - Lënnen eldib

I will/am going to eat ≈ Lënnen eldibr

-

Remember pronoun conjugation? The personal suffixes come after the tense suffix.

[Example: It is going to/ will eat ≈ Italy eldibri, NOT *Italy eldibir]