Written French grammar is particularly good at expressing nuances due to the expression of the variety of "times" and tenses. J'aimais and j'aimai (imparfait a

Written French grammar is particularly good at expressing nuances due to the expression of the variety of "times" and tenses. J'aimais and j'aimai (imparfait and passé simple) are both past but the first expresses "I loved (duration, action being performed in the past)" and the latter "I loved (instant, action completed)". Je finissais (imparfait) = I was completing (some stuff), je finis (passé simple) = I completed. Also Je marcherais (conditionnel présent) = I would walk, (possible) Je marcherai (futur) = I will walk (true) (Maybe the ability to express a nuance discreetly is a sort of elegance) You could say " this is spaghetti code" but je marche, je marchai, je marchais, je marcherai, je marcherais respects some kind of nearly mathematical rules that allows me to feel situations. March - e March - ai March - ais Marcher - ai Marcher - ais J'ai marché, j'avais marché, j'eus marché, j'aurais marché, j'aurai marché express a lot of different things based on the different forms of "to have". English has this kind of complexity too : I have walked, I had walked, I did walk, I will walk, I will have walked, I did have walked... I am not arguing about the possibility of nuances here but rather about the means by which they are expressed, of course.