Questions about past and present tense

Question

0 In a movie I heard "I came here... I brought sth to you..." (The  character is visiting his friend).However, in another movie I heard "I  come to Egypt (to buy wheat)...I bring gold..." (A story from Genesis.  Joseph's elder brothers went to Egypt to trade wheat with gold.)  Since the two situations are similiar, why do they two use different  tenses?02br02br00Besides,  in one movie one guy hit an MP officer in his nose, whose soldiers  pointed guns at that man, then he surrendered and said,"What do I do?"  Since he hit the officer just now, why didn't he say "What did I do?"02br02br00I have always been confused by such tense problems. Please give me some explanations. Thank you! 0-

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

0Hello Lissle, and welcome to English Forums.02br
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00I think that in both cases, an unusual verb tense is used to show that the speakers are not native speakers of English. It is a common technique in creating the illusion of dialect or ethnicity in films and other dramatizations.0-

Yankee · Answer

0 01blockquote

01cite10Lissle12cite10Besides, in one movie one guy hit an MP officer in his nose, whose soldiers pointed guns at that man, then he surrendered and said,"What do I do?" Since he hit the officer just now, why didn't he say "What did I do?"12br
12blockquote

10I think it's 01u00possible02u00 that in this situation the prisoner was asking the soldiers "01i00What do you want me to do now/next02i00?" In other words, he wants to know what the next step in the usual surrender procedure is. 0-

Ant_222 · Answer

0 Mr. Micawber: «I think that in both cases, an unusual verb tense is used to show that the speakers are not native speakers of English. It is a common technique in creating the illusion of dialect or ethnicity in films and other dramatizations.»02br
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00As I know, Present Simple is not unusual/unnatural in several types of narration:02br
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001------02br
00I go into the room and see a girl. The girl is wearing a worn green jacket and a white skirt. "What are you doing here?", I ask.02br
00-------02br
002------02br
00Titov passes to Baranov, Baranov to Robson, Robson to Bestchastnykh, nice ball - and Bestchastnykh shoots!02br
00-------02br
003------02br
00I shell the nuts. One by one. And every nut turns to be empty. Sighing, I pick the last nut out of the pouch and... it's empty too! — except for a little worm inside, saying: «It's a pity, isn't it?»02br
00------- 0-

Mister Micawber · Answer

1blockquote

00in both cases, an unusual verb tense is used12blockquote

10Yes, of course, Ant. I-01del~~00and the thread02del~~00 are speaking of these two cases.0-

Ant_222 · Answer

0Mr. Micawber: What you did is quote yourself and then say to me you were speaking of the two cases... Hmmm. What do you mean?02br
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00I just wrote it's not really unusual to use Present Simple when reporting past events and then gave some examples. Another example is some adventure games' descriptions of what happens as the hero performs an order:02br
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00Command: examine sack02br
00Result: Cautiously, you open the sack and see many sparkling and flashing diamonds! Quickly, you close it again so as not to lose any.02br
00((C) — «King's Quest: Quest for Crown» by Sierra, 1984)02br
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00To me it's not unnatural at all. So, I think that in this case (as well as in the sentences "quoted" by Lissle) the real purpose of Present Simple is not "to show that the speakers are not native speakers of English", it's rather a pretty correct English.02br
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00To make certain about that one will need the whole and exact context, though...02br
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00That's what I said in my previous post.0-

New2grammar · Answer

0Ant, I agree with your usage of present tense in all your examples. Present tense can be used in story telling though the events happened in the past. This is to replay the events as they are unfolding now to your audience and make the story interesting. The same applies to commands/orders/instructions. 02br
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00 However, I believe the original examples should be "I came here..." and "What did I do?" to be correct. I dont think they are part of a story or instructions.02br
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00I could be wrong.0-

Lissle · Answer

Thanks to all the replies. In the second example, Joseph's elder brother was talking to Pharaoh. He said "I come to Egypt and I bring gold." Yet in everyday English, shouldn't he say "I came to Egypt and I brought gold?"

At first I couldn't understand why Americans say "I came here..." as my first language is Mandarin Chinese, in which speakers say "I come here..."

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