''Are beginning to understand''

[Rachel Adams]

Hello.


This sentence is from the book English Grammar in Context by Michael Vince.
''Scientists noawdays slowly begin to understand/are slowly beginning to understand how the brain works.''
I chose ''begin to understand'' but the book says it should be ''are beginning to understand''. Why is it wrong to use the simple present in this sentence?

 

[teechar]

Rachel, why did you initially choose the present simple? You must have had a reason.

 

[Rachel Adams]

Rachel, why did you initially choose the present simple? You must have had a reason.

I think I didn't pay attention to the idea that it's a current trend. "They are beginning to understand" is happening around the present moment. The present simple is wrong. In "You are imaging things" and "You imagine things" both can be used with a different meaning.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Right!

 

[teechar]

[STRIKE]In[/STRIKE] "You are imagining things" and "You imagine things" [STRIKE]both[/STRIKE] can [STRIKE]be used with a[/STRIKE] have different meanings.

Note the corrections above.
Also for the benefit of learners, it is incorrect to think of the present simple as some sort of catch-all verb tense. It has particular uses, and outside of those, it is incorrect to default to it.

 

[Rachel Adams]

Note the corrections above.
Also for the benefit of learners, it is incorrect to think of the present simple as some sort of catch-all verb tense. It has particular uses, and outside of those, it is incorrect to default to it.

Yes, I understand that. And completing exercises and discussing its uses is very useful.
I wish the admin hadn't closed the thread about the difference between "I live" and "I am living". I had no idea they can be both used in the situations that were mentioned in that thread.

 

[teechar]

I completely disagree. I have come across so many students who simply default to the present simple and forget about other tenses, and this becomes a habit with them. Beginner students and learners may possibly use it by default (as opposed to intentionally/knowingly defaulting to it) because they simply don't bother with (or don't know how to use) tense. That is different. It is then our job to introduce them to the concept of tense, and in doing so, to teach them that the present simple, in fact, is just one of many tenses in English, and that it has its uses, just like any other tense. In other words, it is important to let learners know that when they say "I drink coffee", for example, that they are in fact using tense, and not just roughly expressing some idea. And if the present simple is not appropriate for what they're trying to express, then I certainly point that out to them.

 

[Rachel Adams]

As a learner, I can say that studying English tenses is not easy. Even when I study the rules, I come across situations in which more than one tense can be used. My last question, (post#18) regarding the difference between "I live" and "I am living" is unanswered. I would be grateful to the admin if he opens it. Piscean, you introduced me to additional uses of English tenses something that wasn't even mentioned in my textbooks. I would like to ask the admin not to be too quick to close threads and give my thread a chance.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

As a learner, I can say that studying English tenses is not easy. Even when I study the rules, I come across situations in which more than one tense can be used. My last question, (post#18) regarding the difference between "I live" and "I am living" is unanswered.

Hm. This quote of yours is from post #10. We haven't gotten to #18 yet.

I do remember replying to your question about I live versus I,m living. I thought it was answered well. In fact, we had gotten to the point where we were just repeating ourselves.

I would be grateful if the administrator would it.

The adminstrator who closed it might have been a woman.

Piscean, you introduced me to additional uses of English tenses, something that wasn't even mentioned in my textbooks. I would like to ask the administrator not to be too quick to close threads and give my thread a chance.

Rachel, we put a lot of time into answering that question. You've probably noticed that the advisors here don't always agree with each other. That's because English has a lot of gray areas. You were asking for a black-and-white rule, and there simply isn't one.

If you don't understand or can't accept our answers to a question, just set the question aside for a few years, then revisit it. No one learns English overnight!

 

[Rachel Adams]

Rachel, we put a lot of time into answering that question. You've probably noticed that the advisors here don't always agree with each other. That's because English has a lot of gray areas. You were asking for a black-and-white rule, and there simply isn't one.

If you don't understand or can't accept our answers to a question, just set the question aside for a few years, then revisit it. No one learns English overnight!

No, I definitely wasn't asking for a black-and-white rule.Maybe before I did. I asked about hometowns in that thread. If a native speaker would ever say "I am living" instead of "I live". We discussed three different situations in which both the present simple and the progressive were not impossible. That was very helpful.:-o I was only wondering if either could be used in the situation I just mentioned. By the way, in those three situations we were not talking about hometowns.
Oh, no. I cannot put it aside for years. I am not that patient.

 

[GoesStation]

Rules only go so far in learning a language. You've spent a tremendous amount of time here looking for rules to help choose which of these tenses to use in various situations. You would quite likely have made more progress if you had instead spent that time reading a novel or watching programming.

Native speakers don't generally learn rules; we learn the language by hearing it in use.

 

[emsr2d2]

I suspect that the mods sometimes close such threads because they have reached the end of their useful life for the overwhelming majority of members.

Touché.