Can someone please explain to me why I keep reading things like "I'm thinking that...." (instead of "I think that") or for example McDonald's slogan is "I'm loving it" instead of "I love it?" In today's New York Times, David Brooks wrote: "These two visions are better than that will BE ARISING" instead of "....will arise." I see this everywhere: Economist, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall St. Journal, Time, Newsweek, etc. All these papers have editors. Why in the world does this happen? I'm not liking it. (Hah hah.)
I realized that having a lot of contractors from India around the office was influencing the culture when I noticed long-term employees nodding in figure-eights and speaking in the present progressive.
Ron, I've noticed that, too, with people from South Asia in general, and I wonder why that is. As a former (and -- sometimes -- still) teacher of ESL, and as a speaker of Spanish, I understand that many verb tenses don't translate exactly from one language to another. But I wonder, specifically, Ron, if you know Hindi (or any of the 1,600 or so other languages in India that may or may not give rise to this construction), and why that construction is so common in translation.
By the way, my former students who were Mandarin speakers told me their language did not have verb tenses (again, in the way we American-English speakers know), but that the temporal sense was conveyed by other constructions. Anybody know about Mandarin?
Sorry, can't help you out with the Hindi, but I know that the progressive is used to add a layer of politeness in Japanese, as are the equivalents of English "it is the case that" and "I think". A straightforward statement like "I will order chicken" can become "I am thinking that it is the case that I will be ordering chicken".
One of many things to watch out for when using automatic translation.
I can reply regarding the Mandarin. Your sources are correct, and take the time to explain it well. It annoys me when I hear simply "Chinese has no verb tenses." It certainly does. However, Chinese does not inflect the verb to express the tense, mood, and voice, but rather adds other words to the sentence.
In English we can get a taste of this by considering the already inflected form of Loved.
Chris loved Pat.
Chris was loved by Pat.
Pat had loved Terry.
Leslie has loved many.
Terry should have loved Chris.
Terry would have loved Chris, if not for Sal.
Leslie will have loved still many more.