The Instant and the Standing Rule
Present simple and present continuous, taught by Sophia, resisted by Marcos, answered by Demetria, and precisely footnoted by Philo.
Not everything called present is about this instant, Marcos.
Isn't that rather the point of the word?
Present continuous is the instant — an action caught in the middle of happening.
Like him. "He is falling asleep."
"I am re-shelving this basket." Ask me again in an hour and it won't be true.
Exactly. True now. Not necessarily true later.
Present simple isn't about an instant at all. It's what holds, instant after instant, whether or not you happen to be watching.
So it isn't really about the present. You've named it after the wrong thing.
"The library never closes its doors before sunset." That was true yesterday. It will be true tomorrow.
A rule. A habit. A fact. None of them live in a single instant — that's what makes them simple present, not what's happening this second.
Notice the shapes: "He is falling asleep" catches Marcos mid-act. "The library never closes its doors before sunset" would hold, whether or not any of us were here to say it.
Yes. One is a photograph. The other is a law.
But you'd never say "I am knowing the answer," even though it's true right now.
Because knowing isn't an action in progress. Some verbs — know, want, believe — describe a state, not a doing. States take simple present even when they're true this instant.
In Hebrew, the verb doesn't ask when at all — only whether the action is complete or still unfolding. Your "present tense" is really borrowing the label of a moment for something that often has nothing to do with one.
Which is why I'd rather you thought of it as: continuous for the instant, simple for everything that outlasts it.
Even my laziness?
Especially your laziness.