Quote Originally Posted by M.Vonok View Post
Это очень помогает мне!
I am glad my explanations help you. However, I want to discuss this very phrase. Althought it is off-topic, I hope you will find it useful.

There is absolutely no mistake in this phrase. I see you Russian is quite good!
However, we do not say it like that. There is an interesting thing between languages: a sentence can be 100% grammatically correct, but its wording can be unnatural though. I wonder if there is any textbook which covers the wording issues. I've never seen it.

All that I write here is only based on my own observations.
I have noticed that sometimes English speakers use the present tense where we, Russians, would use past or future. I cannot see any specific rules for that to explain. I think one just has to get used to it.

I noticed many explanations in English end with words "I hope that helps". And the answer often reads as "That helps me a lot". First time when I saw this it confused me a lot: why "helps" and not "helped"?! But later I just got used to this expression.
Well, but how would we say it in Russian?
Ending an explanation, I would write "Надеюсь, это поможет вам" (the future tense), assuming when you read it (in the future! not now, now I am just posting the message) it will help you.
Another possible way: "Надеюсь, я ответил на ваш вопрос" (the past tense) - you did not read my answer yet, but from my own perspective, I have already finished writing the answer, so I would use the past tense: "I hope I answered your question". However, I know an English speaker would write "I hope it answers your question".

When replying to an explanation, we would write: "Вы мне (очень) помогли". This is a one-time action: I read your explanation once, I understood it, it answered my questions, so it helped me. But we would stick to "вы мне помогли" rather that "это мне помогло".
In some other situations (e.g. I gave you some advice, and you tried doing what I said) you can either say "это мне помогло" (the advice itself) or "вы мне помогли" (by giving me the advice).

If someone says "это мне помогает", the only possible understanding is that is an on-going action, he is still trying to follow my advice, gradually improving his results, but did not fully succeed in it. Example (sorry, my example is quite silly, but it's the easiest example which comes to my mind):
N asked me "How to lose weight"? He is 150 kg now, and he wants to be 80 kg. I said him: "do exercises every morning and try jogging as well". So, he started doing so everyday. And now he is already 120 kg. Then he says: "это очень помогает мне" (i.e. exercises and jogging). After he reaches the desired result of 80 kg, he will say: "Это очень помогло мне" (doing what you said helped me) or "Ты очень помог мне" (you helped me with your advice).

There are some other cases as well, when English uses present and Russian uses a different tense.
After having explained something to someone, we can ask:
- Вы поняли?
Although, we can do without a verb at all: Вам понятно?
However, these questions are not quite polite. A more polite way to ask:
- Я понятно объяснил(а)?
And an expected answer is:
- Да, я (вас) понял.
or
- Извините, я (вас) не понял.

I noticed that in English they ask
- Does it make sense? Do you understand me?
And they answer
- Yes, I understand. Yes, I see. I do not understand.

But this situation with being understood is a bit more complicated. The present tense is also possible. An explainer can ask:
- Вы меня понимаете?
And a listener can say:
- Извините, я вас не понимаю.
However, the past tense is more typical. I think the question "Вы меня понимаете?" can imply the speaker did not finish his explanation yet, and he interrupts to make sure his logic is clear. Anyway, there is no strict rule for that (I think), and we can use both past and present.

Previously, when I had a very little experience of communicating in English, I often used to say: "I understood you!" to confirm someone's words were clear. But later I noticed nearly no one speaks like that.

PS That would be a nice idea to open a separate thread with a collection of all known wording issues (I mean the inter-language differences of how we phrase some things), which cannot be deducted from grammar rules or from vocabulary knowledge. But I understand (here I would keep present in Russian ) it is an extremely complicated task (сложнейшая задача).