Present tense vs. the Progressive tense?

Question

I put into the translation search engine the sentence: " I am studying spanish tommorrow".

What do I get as a translation?: See for yourself, put it into the translator and you will see the Progressive tense on all 3 translators. Why?

I made it very clear that this is an action that is in the future, "tomorrow"!
Is there something wrong with my thinking on the present vs progressive?

I thought the progressive tense has to be something you are doing now not tomorrow!

Answer 1

Machine translations are by nature restricted to the algorithms implemented by their designers and generally do not even begin to approximate the fullness of a given language. Because of this inherent deficiency, it is not uncommon to find flaws in translations given by these devices.

In English, as I am sure you are aware, it is quite colloquial to use the progressive tense to describe future events (i.e. I am studying Spanish tomorrow ~ I will study Spanish tomorrow ~ I am going to study Spanish tomorrow); however, in Spanish, this option is not available. Unfortunately, programmers have not devised a way to account for this usage but instead have implemented an algorithm that translates the expression literally. For example, a typical series of translations from Google translate would be:

1). I am studying Spanish tomorrow ? Estoy estudiando español mañana.

2). I will study Spanish tomorrow ? Voy a estudiar mañana español.

3). I am going to study Spanish tomorrow ? Me voy a estudiar mañana español

Of each of these proposed translations, only the second listed above correctly translates into an appropriate verb phrase, that is, a verb phrase that correctly translates the intended meaning of the original English expression. Incidentally, another option that was not even listed by any of the translation engines would be "estudiaré".

This should tell you a couple of things. First, it is not generally a good idea to depend solely on automatic translations, especially when a good deal of precision is required, and second, if you are using Google translate to translate a verb in the future tense, it is probably best use the basic future tense—i.e. "will" + "bare infinitive" (bare infinitive = infinitive sans the prepositional marker "to.").

Answer 2

You can not depend on the machine translators..they are good for small one word translations from time to time but when it comes to long sentences and verb tenses...they fall by the wayside...the reason being... they do not know grammar. The present progressive tense is only used when you are doing the action at that very moment. Once you added tommorow this changes the feeling of the sentence and made it a future event. You can use the immediate future or the garden variety future: Voy a estudiar español mañana. o Estudiaré español mañana.

Answer 3

Hi Walter!

I think you may have forgotten something very important, which is this is only a machine and it can't think unlike humans, the machines only translates things literally.

Answer 4

Machine translations are often inaccurate.

Answer 5

I guess it is because we all talk badly. I am not sure if in Spanish it is a phrase grammatically correct, either, although that form is used too.

The correct way it should've been:

I will be studying tomorrow.

or

I will study tomorrow..