Consider the following:
Am, is, are, were, was, being.
Are these A.) six different words OR B.) six different forms of the same word?
I suppose that in English one way of thinking doesn't necessarily have a clear advantage over the other; I think the latter is much more logical, but I had grammar textbooks in school that assumed the former. I am guessing that many or most English speakers think about it the first way, although if they were pressed, they might acknowledge the second way.
In Latin, the second way of thinking makes a great deal more sense, because Latin has fewer words and more forms of each word. I do not know whether ancient Roman children grew up thinking of eo and ibam as two completely different words related in meaning (though I suspect they had schoolteachers who taught them otherwise). As far as learning Latin for the Mass goes, I suppose you may think about it whichever way you find the most natural and comfortable, since there are not that many forms to learn, and that may be the way your brain is accustomed to processing language.
However, keep in mind that in counting the number of vocabulary words, I count "I go," "you go," "he goes," and "she goes" as four instances of the same word and not four different words. This makes even more sense for nouns.
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