Woods wrote:"Try to do this."
"I am."
"Come out, I'm waiting."
"I am."
We're having this type of conversation with one of my Finnish friends all the time - she's thinking she can switch from my imperative to present perfect without restating the verb, I think that sounds weird - she should say "I am trying" / "I am coming." What is your stance on it?
Woods wrote:Other than that, you're saying it sounds less weird, but what about her way of switching tenses? Is what she does normal to you? If it is, I might start doing it too - it's going to open some new possibilities
Yes, that type of switch does sound perfectly normal.
"Try to do this." - "I am.""Try to do this." - "I am trying.""Come out, I'm waiting." - "I am.""Come out, I'm waiting." - "I'm coming.""Come out, I'm waiting." - "Coming!"All of these sound good. With the last one, "coming!" works (as Linguoboy mentioned) because it's a common expression in its own right, but with most other verbs you couldn't say it without the word "am". (In the first example you would not answer with "Trying!", for example.)
Woods wrote:We're having this type of conversation with one of my Finnish friends all the time - she's thinking she can switch from my imperative to present perfect without restating the verb, I think that sounds weird
Woods wrote:Really? Well I wanted to emphasise that we're currently having this type of conversation / I'm currently observing it / it happens at the moment (I mean these days) - it's not something I had noticed in the past and I don't necessarily expect it to continue in the future. It's not like "the sky is blue" or something that is permanently a fact. Would you not use the present perfect in this case?
Hmm. I'm wondering if part of the issue here is the fact that you said "all the time." It doesn't sound natural to say "
we're having this type of conversation
all the time" or even "
we've been having this type of conversation
all the time;" if it's
all the time it should be "we have this type of conversation all the time". But, your paragraph above seems to indicate that "all the time" isn't actually what you meant ("it's not something I had noticed in the past and I don't necessarily expected it to continue in the future"
that's not "all the time" then). I think I would have said:
"We've been having this type of conversation
lately"
"We've been having this type of conversation
recently."
"We've been having this type of conversation
all the time lately." [this limits "all the time" to mean only "in recent times"]
All of those sound good. But without
lately/recently to indicate that it happened in the near past, it sounds odd ("We're having this type of conversation all the time" - if it's really all the time, as in past-present-future, you would use present tense to describe it.)
Another comment: you said "
We're having this type of conversation with one of my Finnish friends," with the first-person plural "we," but you only mentioned two people (you and one of your Finnish friends). If it's just you and her, you should say "
I've been having this type of conversation with one of my Finnish friends."
I'm mentioning this because some languages use the first-person plural in that situation, but English doesn't, so I'm wondering if that's what you meant or not. You would only say "we" in a sentence like this if there were at least three people involved (you and someone else, or you and a group, who have had these conversations with a Finnish friend), because you have set the Finnish friend in a different group by saying "with one of my Finnish friends". She can't be part of "we" in this sentence, so if you are the only other person involved, then you should use the pronoun "I".
Also... notice that in this post, twice I wrote "I'm wondering," and once "I'm mentioning," much like how you wrote "she's thinking." This is acceptable; it means that I started wondering when I read your message, and I'm still wondering. Your friend was thinking her sentences were okay when she said them, and you haven't convinced her that they're incorrect, so she's still thinking they are okay. (I'm thinking that, too!)
It's a really common construction especially when making a suggestion: "So, I was thinking....." But in my opinion it works fine here too. I would have used it for
both people:
"
She's thinking she can switch from my imperative to present perfect without restating the verb;
I'm thinking that sounds weird."
Or use present tense for both:
"
She thinks she can switch from my imperative to present perfect without restating the verb;
I think that sounds weird."
Either is fine, but mixing them sounds a bit awkward. English likes parallel structure; sometimes more than one grammatical tense is acceptable in a given situation, but once you choose one, you should stick with it. Within a sentence use the same grammar (same tense, etc.) for any list or for related ideas like these, as much as possible.
That's more than you asked for, so I hope you don't mind, and hope it's useful!