He's been coming for forty minutes.

jutfrank

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Mar 5, 2014
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English Teacher
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English
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How is my example any different from what's going on in the video? :oops:
The boy has asked for help, and the girl says, "I'm going, I'm going, I'm going".

Yes, it's odd. I can only guess what's going on in her mind:

At first, when she says 'oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!' she's expressing that there is imminent danger to her, and that she has an intention of getting away from the danger immediately. In this context, I'm going. I'm going. I'm going makes sense. It means 'I'm leaving this place'.

Next, when he screams for help, she repeats the same words (I'm going! I'm going!). Now, that's not really right, because 'I'm going' doesn't have the same meaning as 'I'm coming' (i.e. 'I'm moving to your location in order to help you'). My guess is that the reason for this is that she still has the previous thought in her mind and hasn't managed to change the verb to the correct one, which is 'coming'. To any native speaker listening to that, it sounds wrong.
 
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