Part III: The Last Examples: Based on English: - Sun rises (fact) الشمس تطلع (مضارع) - I run everyday (habit) أنا أجري كل يوم (مضارع) - He feels happy (state) هو يشعر بالسعادة (مضارع) - They're coming home (continuous) هم يعودون إلى المنزل (مضارع) - I've just eaten (Present Perfect) أنا أكلت لتوي (ماضي past) - They've arrived (P.P.) لقد وصلوا (ماضي) - You've put the plate on the table (P.P.) أنت وضعت/قد وضعت الصحن على الطاولة (ماضي) - I went to school yesterday (Past simple) أنا ذهبت للمدرسة البارحة (ماضي) - It rained (Past simple) لقد أمطرت (ماضي) - I had eaten my lunch two days ago (Past perfect) أنا تناولت غذائي منذ يومين(ماضي) - I had prepared dinner when my wife came (Past perfect/Past simple) كنت قد أعددت العشاء حين جاءت زوجتي - You were playing in the garden (past continuous) أنت كنت تلعب في الحديقة - I will work tomorrow (future( أنا سأعمل/سوف أعمل غداً (مستقبل) - By June, I will have been graduated في شهر يونيو، سأكون قد تخرجت Based on French: - Le soleil se lève (un fait) الشمس تشرق (مضارع) - Je cours chaque jour (une habitude) أنا أجري كل يوم (مضارع) - Il se sent heureux (un statut) هو يشعر بالسعادة (مضارع) *No present continuous in French - J’ai mangé une baguette. (passé composé) أنا أكلت رغيف من خبز الباجيت * In French, as in Arabic, the passé composé has both meanings of the past tense and the present perfect in English. - Tu jouais dans le jardin (imparfait) أنت كنت تلعب في الحديقة - J'avais préparé le dîner quand elle est venue (Pluperfect/passé composé) كنت قد حضرت العشاء حين جاءت هي - Je vais travailler demain/Je travaillerai demain (futur) أنا سأعمل/سوف أعمل غداً - En Juin, ils seront allés (futur antérieur) في يونيو، سيكونوا قد ذهبوا Translating from Italian is the same. It has no present continuous, no passato prossimo in Arabic so we translate it as we do with the passato remoto (exactly as English). Imperfetto is translated as كان + المضارع . Presente, Futuro, Futuro Anteriore and Trapassato Prossimo (pluperfect) are the same as French.

Part II The Arabic speaker views himself moving actively through time, not passively as in the case of the train. Then he perceives "the point of now" moving with him to a new point and the older one becomes the past. So an action started at the older point and continues with the speaker to the new one is مضارع to him, what the Englishman sees as continuous; an action that is elongated as time passes (the trees are passing by). An action that happens on repeated intervals, almost infinitely, will intercept with the newer "points of now" of the Arabic speaker as he moves through time, these are facts and habits (present simple) e.g. Sun rises. This also takes المضارع in Arabic. When the action stops following the Arabic speaker in his movement to a new point of now, then the action itself becomes a past, even if its effect is still obvious e.g. I've made dinner: in English it's in present perfect because I started making it then I finished it (past) and the dinner is ready now (present). Arabic doesn't care about emphasizing that the dinner is ready, the most important is that the action is done أنا حضرت العشاء. It could be understood from the context that the dinner is ready, and to emphasize that I'm not talking about "far past" event, I can add العشاء جاهز (dinner is ready). Past perfect also doesn't exist (treated as past simple in Arabic) except when there is background action/foreground action situation. In this case the background (past perfect) is formed in Arabic by كان + قد + الفعل الماضي , and the foreground takes the past simple الماضي. Both كان and the past must be conjugated with the subject; I'll explain with examples below. Past continuous has a similar form to denote that the action that took place in the past lasted for several points of time; because actions in the past normally treated as a single point. This form is كان + الفعل المضارع and both must be conjugated with the subject.

This has to do with the way a language affects how a native speaker perceives time. It's easy but long, so I'll divide my answer in 3 parts. Part I Imagine an Englishman on a steadily moving train. He can't feel his movement. The train consists of endless cabinets; each one has a medium-sized window. When he enters a cabinet he sees some actions happening outside the window. For him, this cabinet is his present time; his "now". He can say: "I eat breakfast" present tense, because it's a short action begins and ends in the cabinet. "The trees are passing by" present continuous, because it's an action that keeps going on and will continue perhaps after he leaves the cabinet. If a friend comes in and offers him a sandwich he will say "I've just eaten" present perfect, because the action he mentioned happened few minutes ago while he is still in the cabinet, so its effect is still present at the moment, and the speaker perceives it as a recent past. When he moves to other cabinet he can recall all what happened in the first one as "far past", so he will use past tense instead of present tense and past cont. instead of present cont. when he speaks about what happened there. Arabic speakers perceive the "now" on timeline as a point on a thin thread. Like a place-mark on a map, but the map here is squeezed to a straight line and has two directions only; forward and backward. A point is seen as a whole; can't be divided, so you can't have an action that occurs "within" it. An action for the Arabic speaker is what happens on several connected dots. So "present" as it is in English and Latin Languages does not exist in Arabic. Instead, he views المضارع as an action that started few dots behind him (now), passes his point and will continue for several more. The past is anything that started and ended behind the point of now even if it still has effect in the present (no present perfect tense). The future is an action that will start at a point after the point of now.

Well, I hope I understand your question clearly, These verbs in Arabic are describing different tenses. The First one ( ُيكتب ) which mean he writes (in English), you used it to talk about the present (Present tense). The Second one, ( َكَتَب ) which mean he wrote, you used it to talk about something happened in the past and finished; eg: you wrote a letter. (Past tense). The Third one, ( ُكانَ يَكْتُب ) means he was writing, I think it's like the "past continuous in English" the difference between the first one and this one is ( كان ) which convert the tense from the present to the past. The last one ( ُسَيَكْتُب ) means he will write, you used it to talk about something will happen in the future. (Future tense). ** ( س / سوف ) before the verb describe that the verb will happen in the future. #usually we use ( س ) for the near future, and ( سوف ) for the far future. " I hope it's useful for you " (sorry if there is misuse of the english grammars)

I kind of understand your question. However, to be sure it will be good if you illustrate your problem with examples. instead of explaining each Arabic verb tense I found this article very intuitive. https://blogs.transparent.com/arabic/arabic-verb-forms-perfective-vs-imperfective/ I have seen this video before, this video provides a good comparison between languages in terms of aspects and tenses, maybe this can reform your view about this topic since you are considering Latin languages https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9XqdvarsGMU Since you are interested in Levantine and Egyptian Arabic it's good to know that there is a difference between dialects and MSA in present tense. MSA have only one form for present tense while dialects have simple and progressive form. In Egyptian, Laventine Arabic dialects, and some other dialects, they add ب to The verb as a prefixes to express present progressive. Some dialects like mine use قاعد before the verb. Sorry for posting an empty comment before. I have clicked on comment by wrong. They should add deleting feature for comment if it didn't get like or there isn't any comment comes after.