How does the present indicative form become a gerund?
I was watching a commercial for Felix Arroyo, who is running for mayor of Boston, and he said "Crecí aquí, estudia en la escuela publica de boston." According to online translators, this means ""I grew up here, studying in the boston public school." Shouldn't it say "Crecí aquí, estudiando en la escuela publica de boston."? Maybe this is because if it were "estudiando," it would mean "While studying at public school, I grew up here"??
2 Answers
The use of estudia does not seem correct. Phrases like: Estaba estudiente en la escuela... or Estudiaba en la escuela... would seem more correct. I also think as you do that it could have been expressed using estudiando, but it wouldn't mean "while" just "studying".
Clearly "estudia" is incorrect, since it is the third person present indicative form of estudiar. Since he is speaking of an event that occirred in a specific time frame in the past, the preterit would seem to be appropriate, "estudié". Try putting "Crecí aquí, estudié en la escuela publica de Boston" in your translator. It should return "I grew up here, I studied in the Boston public school".
Be careful with the comparison of the English gerund with the Spanish gerundio. They are not equivalent, even though they have similar spelling. The English gerund is a verb form used as a noun. For example "Running is a great sport". The Spanish equivalent to this is the infinitive. In my example, "Correr es un buen deporte".
The Spanish gerundio is the "ando/iendo" form, but it is really more equivalent to the English present participle, and is most often part of a progressive/continuous construction. "Estoy horneando un pastel." I am baking a cake.
The upshot of all this is that English has a prediposition for the "ing" form. It sounds better to us, but it is not always a litteral translation from Spanish.
