The nowness of now

Conversation overheard in a museum in Granada between a young boy, anxious to visit the museum shop, and his mother, recharging her batteries on a bench outside the shop:

Boy: Quiero ir a la tienda.
Mother: Ahora. Ahora vamos.
Boy: ¡Pues venga! ¡Levantate!
Mother: No, no, estoy cansada.
Boy: ¡Pero es que has dicho que ahora vamos!
Mother: Bueno, es que 'ahora' no es 'ahora mismo'. Y ahora tengo que descansar.

This is difficult to translate into English, because the concept of 'ahora' in Spanish corresponds only rather loosely to the concept of 'now' in English. A literal translation might be:

Boy: I want to go to the shop.
Mother: Now. We'll go now.
Boy: Come on then! Stand up!
Mother: No, no, I'm tired.
Boy: But you said we'll go now!
Mother: But 'now' and 'right now' are not the same thing. And now I have to have a rest.

But would anyone actually say 'We'll go now' in this context in English? A better translation might be:

Boy: I want to go to the shop.
Mother: Very soon. We'll go very soon.
Boy: Come on then! Stand up!
Mother: No, no, I'm tired.
Boy: But you said we'll go very soon.
Mother: But 'very soon' and 'right now' are not the same thing. And right now I have to rest.

This is a revealing conversation for an English speaker. In English 'now' refers to the moment of utterance ('Now I understand') or the moment immediately following utterance ('The doctor will see you now' - i.e. please go in, the doctor is waiting) or the moment immediately preceding utterance ('just now'), but it doesn't extend very much beyond this. Ahora in Spanish, at least as it is spoken in Spain, is a more flexible concept. It covers what the speaker is experiencing at this moment ('Ahora estoy cansada') but also what will or may happen in the near future ('Ahora vamos'). Quite how far into the near future it can extend is an intriguing question - it would be interesting to know if people in, say, Bilbao use ahora in the same way as people in Granada, for example.

One way of looking at the conversation above is that the boy has not yet fully realised how blurred a concept ahora is. He wants ahora always to mean en este momento, something that English speakers will sympathise with. His mother reminds him that it can be used in two distinct ways however and she does in fact use both: Ahora tengo que descansar - Right now I have to have a rest, and Ahora vamos - We'll go very soon. It is to avoid this very ambiguity inherent in ahora that ahora mismo is often used. 'Right now' is also used in English of course to emphasise to the immediacy of 'now', although arguably there is still some way to go before the nowness of now is eroded to the extent that it is in Spanish.