This section is from the book "Lessons In English", by Chestine Gowdy, Lora M. Dexheimer. Also available from Amazon: Lessons in English.
Latin verbs have more than a hundred forms to give different ideas of time, to show the attitude of the speaker's mind, and to show the person and number of the subject.
As you have seen, most English verbs have but four or five forms in common use. French and German verbs have more forms than English but fewer than Latin verbs.
We English make up for our lack of verb forms by the use of a large number of verb phrases.
 
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