The forms signaled by the inflectional verb endings {‐s},{‐ed}, {‐en}, and {‐ing} in English, and categories involving these forms, are either absent or reinterpreted in Tagalog. The absence of obligatory distinctions of number and person in Tagalog verbs gives rise to a problem frequently observed even among highly educated Tagalog speakers of English, that of failing to mark consistently the third person singular verb. Voice is reinterpreted in Tagalog by the focus system, and English tense, with its multiple axes of orientation, by the single‐axis aspect system of Tagalog. The Tagalog imperfective aspect includes English “simple present” and all nonfuture {be + ‐ing} forms; the perfective aspect, English “simple past” and all {have + ‐en} forms. Furthermore, tense distinctions signaled by intlectional endings in English, such as those between past and non‐past {have + ‐en} forms, are often signaled in Tagalog only by non‐verbal markers. The interference problems traceable to this reinterpretation of English tense distinctions are the Tagalog speaker's inconsistent use of verbal markers to signal perfected events, and his tendency to overlook distinctions between past and non‐past forms of auxiliaries and between different {have