Take the 2-minute tour ×  Most linguists recognize two tenses in
English, present and past, although other verb forms are often
mistakenly described as tenses. I walk is present tense and I
walked is past tense. A form such as I am walking would be
described not as the present progressive tense, but as a
construction expressing progressive aspect, and made up of the
present tense of be and the –ing form of walk. In other words,
to qualify as a tense, an English verb form has to show
inflectional variation.  Books for foreign learners of German,
in my experience, describe as tenses all finite verb forms, even
though only the present and imperfect show inflectional
variation.  Here’s my question: Do German professional linguists
also describe all verb forms as tenses, or do they recognize
that Ich bin gegangen, for example, is best understood in terms
of aspect?  share|improve this question Who says it's mistaken.
These are called "compound tenses". I think you're confusing
tense and inflection. Even languages