I was watching Shirobako episode 16. and at 2:31 the witch says "落ちる！" as she
falls out of a plane. The subs translated it as "We're falling!" but I'm
confused on why that is so. I'm not sure if present tense of a verb can be
used to indicate continuous action. In this situation, why isn't it "We're
going to fall!" instead of "We're falling!" or 落ちる最中 instead of 落ちる?
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2015-01-31T08:27:39.437
21546
2015-02-01T16:32:35.380
7712
question
tense
Can the Japanese present tense indicate a continuous acton?
Based on what I've seen in the video:

In this scene, she utters it _on_ the plane. Japanese 落ちる usually implies the
result of _falling_ , so in this case she literally says: "We (our planes) are
going to crash!" Maybe the translator wanted to make a more liberal
translation.

By the way, the same line is repeated by another woman immediately after it.
It sounds like a pun on an editorial jargon 落ちる, which means "an article,
episode, publication etc. is dropped, withdrawn with accidental causes" (in
most cases, because they were unable to make deadlines).

![新刊落として申し訳ありませんでしたぁっ!!!](https://i.stack.imgur.com/b8zDR.jpg)  
(cited from <http://s-c.seesaa.net/article/118641344.html>)
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2015-01-31T19:10:48.070
21554
2015-02-01T12:42:10.100
2015-02-01T12:42:10.100
7810
7810
21546
answer
Subtitles don't translate directly, word-to-word or form-to-form.

落ちる here is grammatically present tense, but semantically it can be seen as
future.

Because there is no "real" future tense in Japanese.

We (are going to) fall!
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-02-01T16:32:35.380
21571
2015-02-01T16:32:35.380
21546
answer