[Rizla]

Originally Posted by kacir

According to my English teacher, English has 13 tenses. My classmates were scared shitles when they heard ;-)

If you look at this nice round-up, it is more like 17 ;-)
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/gra...enses_satz.htm

Nearly half of those 17 tenses are progressive forms of the simple tenses, so they only sort-of count. Also they are all living tenses that are used in speech.

However, the French literary tenses are almost never used in speech. As such, French literature has a lofty, archaic tone far-removed from real spoken French. Which kinda makes learning them a waste of time. Sheesh. The French stopped speaking the Passe Simple because the conjugations were so complex they couldn't remember them