Joe, In a reply to a student, you said:
2. “My grammar about the Tagal is long ago finished.” The use of the present tense “is” in this sentence is in error.
Will you explain why?
It is my experience that the present indicative in English is also used, albeit usually in a poetic sense, to indicate that a completed act, whether recent or in the past, is done, finished with, gone and irrevocable. Two examples spring to mind, both from pop songs (not that pop lyrics are prime examples of good grammar).
From the song, "Ballerina"...
"He's not out there, applauding in the second row,
And love is gone, ballerina, gone...."
and from "You Only Live Twice"...
"And love is a stranger,
Who'll beckon you on,
Don't think of the danger,
Or the stranger is gone..."
In the first example, the last line could have been "And love has gone...etc" but that implies a possibility of reconciliation which, I presume, the lyricist wanted to avoid.
In the second example, the last line could easily have been "Or the stranger will be gone", but that doesn't give the doom and gloom finality of "is" in this instance.
