In these examples, the tense changes, but the verb and agent remain the same.
Look closely at the verb in both languages:
Tense
Māori
English
Simple past
I pānui te tama
The boy read
Past continuous
I te pānui te tama
The boy was reading
Past perfect
Kua pānui te tama
The boy has read
Present continuous
E pānui ana te tama
The boy is reading
Present
Kei te pānui te tama
The boy is reading
Further
Ka pānui te tama
The boy will read
In each of the Māori sentences, the verb (in this case “pānui”) DOES NOT CHANGE when the tense of the sentence changes.
In the English sentences, the verb (“read”) does change for some of the tenses.
Let’s look at one more example, using the verb ‘haere’ and its English counterpart "go"
Tense
Māori
English
Simple past
I haere te tama
The boy went
Past continuous
I te haere te tama
The boy was going
Past perfect
Kua haere te tama
The boy has gone
Present continuous
E haere ana te tama
The boy is going
Present
Kei te haere te tama
The boy is going
Further
Ka haere te tama
The boy will go
In Māori, the verb, ‘haere’ does not change when the tense changes.
But look at that crazy English irregular verb; 'went', 'going', gone', 'go'...Utter madness!
Māori verbs do change sometimes, but only when the ‘voice’ of the sentence or phrase is PASSIVE and not ACTIVE.
When used in the passive voice, many Māori verbs have an ending added. But even when this happens the same verb + ending combination is used for all the tenses.
Voicing is a subject for another day. Just remember that Māori verbs never change because the tense changes.