When I read into this, I found it a little confusing, we would actually say, he was meeting the lawyer tomorrow, to mean, He is meeting the lawyer tomorrow.
I think we say it as it was a decision taken before the present or the future. So for once a literal translation would work?
Kerry, I thought something similarly. The English text in the lesson uses the "present" to be understood as past (or future). That confuses me. I think we use more of a past progressive to represent a future or past event (which does relate to the idea of Spanish imperfect}.
Example:
Rather than say:
Elena will be here tonight, her flight lands at half past nine.
I would say:
"her flight was landing at half past nine", which could be used to indicate past or future.
Interesting discussion. It would be VERY useful to know if the construction of using the imperfect for future action is actually used much at all. My guess is that it is not, because it seems awkward and confusing. A native speaker's comments on this would be helpful. Also, I respectfully disagree with Dave P. in that I more commonly hear people in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries say "Elena will be here tonight, her flight lands at half-past nine" for future action, rather than "her flight was landing at half-past nine". The latter construction sounds very awkward for a future action because the statement seems to imply her flight "was going to land", but for some reason didn't or won't. Just my 2 cents from many years living and traveling.
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