>>"Indians tend to "use the present continuous where we would use the
> present
> >>simple (with an Indian saying) 'I am thinking, I am feeling, I am seeing'
> >> rather than 'I think, I feel, I see'... this way of speaking could
> easily
> >> become sexy and part of global Standard English,"
>


which means, right now it isn't, and we should become self-conscious about
it?

hmm...should I say, right now it is not being sexy?


I think we like to be precise in our tenses. "I am going" is much more
precise than "I go", which may just refer to something I do once in a while,
not  towhat I am doing at the present moment. For this, present continuous
is the tense of choice. We even have a way of emphasizing it...."nAn
pOyinNdEy irukkEn!" in Tamizh, which can only be roughly translated to " I
am actually in the process of going!"

Several forms of emphasis that we have, cannot be translated into
English..." mein usee din chalA gayA" can only be sort of translated to "I
went that very day" (or as we sometimes say, "I went that day itself.")

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