The Present Obvious

A peculiar new phenomenon is on the rise here in Cameroon, and scholars take note, it is actually a brand new verb tense: the present obvious. It is incredibly easy to pick up and many people don’t even know they’re using it until somebody points it out. To do it, you simply take an obvious question which you already know the answer to, and stick it in the present tense. Here are a few examples:

Tu es la? (You are there?)
Tu est ici? (You are here?)
Tu part comme ca? (You leave like this?)
Tu arrive déjà? (You arrive already?)

This striking phenomenon is sweeping the nation, and is particularly infecting Peace Corps Volunteers who pick up on this amazingly useful new tense and use it with one another, both in French or English (Yesterday I heard somebody walk into the kitchen and say: “You’re cooking?”).

Another useful phrase which, while not in the present obvious, is in a similar vein is “patience.” Now, patience (pronounced: pah-see-anse), from all of my investigations into my French-English dictionary and questions posed to language trainers, has the same meaning as it does in English. However, when I hit my head getting into a van, somebody told me “patience.” When I tripped over my homestay brother’s foot he said calmly, “patience.” When one girl had to get stitches in the hospital and the nurse was scrubbing her wound with soap and water, the nurse told her “patience.” As far as I can tell, it’s somewhere between “be careful,” “don’t worry about it” and “calm down, it’s not a big deal.”

So if the present obvious is taking you some time to get the hang of, patience.