"He was do the laundry" could mean many things
"he is doing the laundry."
what other meaning can pssibly be extracted from that
there's also the fact that people should use COMMON SENSE, CONTEXT CLUES, and SITUATIONAL LOGIC to determine meanginfs. this is in fact, simply for example, how chinese works: somethings mean many things but people are generally expected to use common sense to determine the meaning based on the situation. for example, "ta" can mean either "he" or "she," but it's used for both and you're generally expected to have enough of a brain to figure so much out.
and you know, that's just without the tonal system thing.