future vs. Present Tense

Question

Using the translators on Spanishdict.com to translate the following sentence "Pues los íntegros, los perfectos,?    habitarán la tierra y permanecerán en ella," the word "permanecerán" is translated once as "will remain" and, in another translation, the present tense "remain." Is this an anomaly of the translator or are there some cases where both would be correct?

Regards, Jim

Answer 1

Hi Jim. This question comes up a lot! Like, earlier today, for instance. So I’m copying and pasting a part of this from another post:

Languages—like English sometimes needs do, does, or did to negate a sentence or to form a question and Spanish does not have this feature; like Spanish usually does not require subject pronouns because they’re implied in the verbal inflections and English does not have this feature—are much more complex than any computer programming can fully, adequately handle. In short, they’re only good up to a point.

Therefore, one needs to “play” with the translators, working back and forth, and working with one’s own knowledge of what makes sense and what does not. It’s the only way to arrive at the “correct” answer.

Think of it this way: if one computer programmer could code translation perfectly, taking into account a million nuances, idioms that require complete re-wording, and all of the different features that this language has and that language doesn’t have, then there wouldn’t be three different “brands” of translators here at SD, and who knows how many elsewhere.

As far as the present tense and the future tense are concerned, like BigMike said, we use the future tense more often in English than it’s used in Spanish, because Spanish speakers sometimes use the present tense to talk about the very near future. (This may or may not have accounted for this particular problem with the translators.)

Another common occurrence in regular speech is that Spanish speakers—just like English speakers—use the periphrastic future (“Voy a ir a la tienda”) to talk about the future, even the more distant future. Periphrastic just means that another construct is used (“Voy a ir a la tienda” is technically simple present tense) but the meanings of the words imply future. So, although it’s not really future tense (Iré a la tienda), it’s understood as being about the future. (In English, “I’m going to go to the store” is present progressive, not simple present; but it’s still the periphrastic future, not the future tense, because it’s not “I will” or “I shall go to the store.”) Anyhoo, I hope this was useful.

Answer 2

An anomaly, I think. Generally, the future tense in Spanish should always be translated into the future tense in English. In fact, I would venture to say that we use the future tense a little more often than our Spanish speaking counterparts.

Answer 3

whats anomoly mean?

anomaly is something that deviates from a common rule. - jgundy, Mar 15, 2013