2min chapter

Long Now: Seminars About Long-term Thinking cover image

Lera Boroditsky: How Language Shapes Thought

Long Now: Seminars About Long-term Thinking

CHAPTER

Different Forms of Verbs in Different Languages

In some languages, not only would you have to change the verb to mark tense, but you would have to figure out how long ago in the past the event happened. For example, in Myanmar, there are five different past tense. And again, some languages make many such distinctions that if you know something from hearing as opposed to from sight, as opposed to inferring it from hearing,you'd use all these different forms of verb. Just in order to be able to speak the language grammatically, they have to pay attention to very different things.

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