In other languages such as German, the same form such as ich ging ("I went", "I was going") can be used perfectively or imperfectively without grammatical distinction.
[3] However, perfective should not be confused with tense—perfective aspect can apply to events in the past, present, or future.
The perfective is often thought of as for events of short duration (e.g., "John killed the wasp").
However, this is not necessarily true—a perfective verb is equally right for a long-lasting event, provided that it is a complete whole; e.g., Tarquinius Superbus regnavit annos quinque et viginti (Livy) "Tarquin the Proud reigned for 25 years.
Other languages instead have separate momentane, inchoative, or cessative aspects for those roles, with or without a general perfective.
Languages may mark perfective aspect with morphology, syntactic construction, lexemes/particles, or other means.