Re: Rosetta Stone Online, conscript jokes

On Sunday, October 7, 2001, at 07:07 , Nik Taylor wrote:

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>> I'm still not quite sure how "hon o yonde imasu"
>>   is different from "hon o yomimasu" (?)--is the former progressive and
>> the
>> other plain present, or something like that?  I'll have to check my
>> grammar sometime.
>
> As I understand it, hon o yondeimasu emphasizes that the reading is
> going on at the present time.  Hon o yomimasu could be habitual or
> future, but hon o yondemasu can only be present.
>
Ah!  That makes sense.  Doomo arigato!

(It was terrible...I got my way through the
listening-for-a-phrase-and-matching-with-written-equivalent exercises by
looking for voicing marks on the hiragana/katakana I remembered, and the
very few kanji I recognized.  Gotta love multiple choice...)

Jaa,
YHL