Things I Don't Understand About the Present Simple in English
Sometimes we use the present simple even when the action is happening in the present. For example:
"The first little pig wants to build his house very quickly.
So he builds his house with straw."
This is from The Three Little Pigs. The whole book is written in the present simple (the simplest tense for a children's book).
The first sentence is clear—wants is a stative verb, so it naturally stays in the present simple.
But the second sentence describes an action that seems to be continuous: he builds his house. The pig is building his house right now, so why isn’t it in the present continuous (he is building his house)?
There are two reasons for this:
It describes a simple fact, not a process. The focus isn’t on the act of building but on the result—what the pig is doing as part of the story.
It follows the storytelling convention of using the present simple for sequences of events. He wants to build > So he builds.
This isn’t unique to English. In Spanish, for example:
"Él construye su casa de paja."
This may be more appropriate than "Él está construyendo su casa de paja."
In Russian, however, the distinction between present simple and present continuous is not as clearly defined. For example:
"Он строит дом."
This phrase can mean both "He builds a house" (present simple) and "He is building a house" (present continuous), depending on context.
