Irish uses some progressive tenses (I do be, I does be) and these can be extended to other tenses instead of an inflected verb
tá and bí are interrelated as the presetn tense has disappeared as such, mixed with the more progressive tensed tendant verb bí. Bí can be inflected to show bíonn (does be), bheadh (used to), bhíos (would), beidh (will) etc (tho mind that the terms used for the first 3 change as the 'actor' (me/her/it etc) are signalled).
What makes it more complex is that the present and past subjective (to my eyes) has collapsed into the conditional, enriching it. This makes negative and wishing statements perhaps more complex than they were in times past. I wont go into that tho till I can give a good account of it
Anyway, here is something else you could do:
One could use specific verbs that one inflects for person and tense, or more progressive ones using bí inflected for tense with seperate personal pronoun and verbal noun:
| | specific verb | | use of bí + VN |
past | | chrúigh sí | | bhí sí ag crú |
present | | | | tá sí ag crú |
do be | | crúnn sí | | bíonn sí ag crú |
used to | | chrúdh sí | | bhíonn sí ag crú |
would | | chrúfadh sí | | bheadh sí ag crú |
will be | | crúfaidh | | beidh sí ag crú |
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