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I am currently studying foreign languages in France and I have a rather important question about conjugation. I had a translation exam (French to English) about a text that was referring to the 2008 financial crisis.

Most of my fellow students translated the text (written in French using the present tense) and used the present tense in English even though it is specified multiple times throughout the text with dates that the events have happened in the past.

My English teacher vehemently opposes this, saying that since the text specifies the events took place in the past we have to use the past tense in our translations. This entails that almost everybody in my year will lose many points.

I am myself of British nationality and a fluent English speaker and I made that "mistake" as well.

After doing some research, the Cambridge Dictionary states the following :

We commonly use the present simple to refer to the past when we want to make events sound as if they are happening now. For example, news headlines are commonly written in the present simple:
Rebels attack government buildings.
German Finance minister resigns.

In formal writing the present simple is also used to refer to important events in the past:
In spring 1984 the government is defeated and an election takes place.
By the end of the year the strikes end.

Can anyone enlighten me on this subject ?

Does anyone know who I can ask about this in a more official way?

KillingTime
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Sebastian Foulkes-Best
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    There is no grammatical rule that would prohibit use of the present tense even in situations where a year or date in the past is explicitly stated. It is a stylistic choice. One could write The Black Death reaches England in 1348. What is more "official" than StackExchange? – TimR Jan 25 '24 at 17:21
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    You can research this by looking up the "historical present". But the first people to ask for explanations are probably the person who set the exam and your English teacher, unless they are one and the same. – Shoe Jan 25 '24 at 17:29
  • "Correcting the original" in the process of translating is a classic mistake. And your teacher is rigid. – Yosef Baskin Jan 25 '24 at 17:30
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    Different languages use the same tense in different contexts, and different tenses in the same context. Historical present is more common in languages like French or Latin where the past tense is comparatively unwieldy or long-winded or obscure; English uses simple past tense more than most European languages I'm familiar with. I think you have to put this down to experience. – Stuart F Jan 26 '24 at 09:55
  • Does this answer your question? What is the name for the grammatical figure, where the present tense is substituted for a past event? The register is not unimportant; this is reflected in the fact that the 'historic present' is also called the 'narrative present' or the 'dramatic present'. Better avoided in strict translations, especially of technical subjects. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 26 '24 at 13:45
  • Andrew Leach addresses the historical present, including reasons for its use, at What does 'are organized' mean in this sentence? – Edwin Ashworth Jan 26 '24 at 14:12
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    Your teacher is flat-out wrong. Obviously, the text you are translating is written in the journalistic or historic present. And that is how it should be translated. – Tinfoil Hat Jan 26 '24 at 16:23
  • As an actual translator (French to English), I say: it depends. I would have to actually see the text. Be aware, though, if you do use the historical present. other adjustments may me necessary. – Lambie Jan 26 '24 at 17:36
  • @StuartF While using compound presents in lieu of simple pasts for perfective situations does happen in Catalan and French (esp. in spoken rather than literary French) and such, this is far less common in nearby European languages, at least as a general substitution rule that blocks the production of a simple past. See list of examples here. Everything else there routinely uses simple past for all those. The simple past is more common than it is absent in my own experience with other European languages sauf French. – tchrist Jan 27 '24 at 18:31

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I kind of hate the term "present tense." The reality is that the English present tense is used in a wide variety of contexts that have absolutely nothing to do with present time. Two of those uses may be relevant here.

First, the present tense is sometimes used to chronicle historical events. In those contexts, the text is providing a permanent record of history; the focus isn't on the fact that these events occurred prior to the time of writing. Secondly, in informal conversation or in fiction, the "historical present" is sometimes used when discussing past events. (My source for this is Huddleston & Pullum (2002), p. 130.)

Whether either of these apply to your particular case would depend on the details of the text in question. But most accounts of the 2008 financial crisis (e.g. Wikipedia, WaPo, FDIC) do use the past tense. These aren't contexts where we'd be likely to find the historical present, and these aren't the sort of chronicles of past events where the "timeless" present tense is likely to be found. Your teacher may have a point.

alphabet
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    I don't think we can say that the financial crisis of 2008 is intrinsically the kind of subject where the historical present would not be used. One could easily write about it in that manner. "It's 2008. The real estate market is overheated and prices are rising rapidly; banks are making balloon loans for amounts far in excess of property values, bundling these suspect loans to obscure that fact, and floating them on the bond market. The charade is doomed to crash. It's only a matter of time." – TimR Jan 26 '24 at 10:03
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    But perhaps I misunderstood you and you were saying only that Wikipedia, WaPo, and the FDIC aren't likely places to find the historical present. If so, I'd agree with regard to FDIC and Wikipedia, but a newspaper story might well use it, especially a multi-part one that is spread out over many weeks. – TimR Jan 26 '24 at 10:29
  • @TimR Yes, that's what I'm saying. Of course you could use the historical present to talk about the financial crisis. But you wouldn't expect it in typical historical accounts, reports, and newspaper articles written long after the events transpired; in a newspaper it would be seen as relatively informal. – alphabet Jan 26 '24 at 17:44
  • Agreed. I'm thinking of a retrospective " exposé" article, the kind that gets nominated for a Pulitzer, where the journalist has more freedom to "tell a story". – TimR Jan 26 '24 at 17:46
  • (Newspaper headlines often use the present tense for recent past events, but that's a separate matter.) – alphabet Jan 26 '24 at 17:49
  • @TimR That sort of narrative does allow the historical present; it can come across as informal, though, and it's fairly uncommon. – alphabet Jan 26 '24 at 17:51
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    It’s neither informal nor uncommon in journalism. And it’s certainly used there in timeline narratives. – Tinfoil Hat Jan 26 '24 at 18:11
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The answer to your problem is in your statement "I had a translation exam" - you translate what is on the paper, not as if it were a report.

If you are translating a newspaper article from 1812 and the headlines say "Napoléon dit qu'il va conquérir la Russie" you must translate them as "Napoleon says he will conquer Russia".

Greybeard
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