Esperanto · Chapter 4 · Lesson 14 · Grammar primer
Compound tenses with esti
Estis leganta, estas leginta, estos legonta: how esti and a participle combine into precise tenses, and why plain -is does the job nine times out of ten.
The short version
Thirty compound tenses exist. Write mi legis.
Any of the five forms of esti in front of any of the six participles gives a compound tense, so there are thirty and every one is grammatical. Almost none are necessary. Mi legas already covers I read and I am reading; mi legis covers I read, I was reading, I have read and I had read. Adverbs do the rest, so mi jam manĝis says I had already eaten in two words. Reaching for mi estas leganta by default is the clearest sign of an English speaker in their first month.
Mi jam manĝis.
The three cells that do earn their keep
Some combinations say something the simple tenses cannot. The -ont- forms, because no ending in Esperanto means about to: mi estas forironta. The passive ones, for when the passive is genuinely unavoidable. And estus plus a participle for a past hypothetical, something that would have happened. Learn the whole grid so you can read what other people write, then keep your own verbs simple.
Mi estas forironta.
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