Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

Teaching Latin Perfect and Imperfect Tense

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2021

Abstract

The imperfect/perfect tense in Latin represents grammaticalized aspectual opposition similarly to the imperfective/perfective past tense in Czech. The imperfective past tense is commonly used for past narrative in Czech, whereas the perfect tense is the main narrative past tense used in Latin.

Latin language textbooks in the Czech Republic introduce the imperfect alongside the other infectum (present) stem tenses and verb forms before proceeding to teach those of the perfectum stem. This pedagogical sequencing often causes an unintended consequence where the perfect tense is perceived by the students to be less important than the imperfect tense, which is used much less frequently.

Also, students struggle learning the perfect tense because it is often left until the end of the course, if even taught at all due to time constraints.