3.4 - Estructuras - el presente continuo

 Estructuras

We are going to look at a verb tense that is useful to talk about something that is happening in the moment, ahora mismo (right now).

 

In English, it is very common for us to use this tense - we know it by seeing an “-ing” on the end of a verb. Any “-ing” word like “dancing”, “eating”, “calling” is called a present participle in English. Usually we pair it with the helping verb “to be” to make “is dancing”, “is eating”, and “are calling”. The combination of “to be” with a present participle is called the present progressive.

 

In Spanish, the same thing exists, it is called el presente progresivo. We use the verb “estar” (verbo auxiliar) changed to match the subject, then we combine it with the participio presente of another verb to form el presente progresivo.

 

The present participles of verbs in Spanish depend on whether the verb ends in -ar, -er o -ir.

 

	infinitivo	raiz	participio presente
verbos que terminan en -AR	hablar	habl-	hablando
verbos que terminan en -ER	tener	ten	teniendo
verbos que terminan en -IR	vivir	viv	viviendo

 

Los verbos que terminan en “-ar” llevan “-ando”. Los verbos que terminan en “-er” o “-ir” llevan “iendo”.

 

 

Unos ejemplos de la lección:
Tú y los demás están aprendiendo mucho sobre Colombia.	You and the other teams are learning a lot about Colombia.
Están viendo muchas cosas nuevas.	They are seeing a lot of new things.
¿Qué están haciendo en el video?	What are they doing in the video?

 

OJO: Remember - whatever your subject is (tú, ella, los jugadores, etc.) you will change/conjugate “estar” to match it.

 

Tú estás bailando. 
Él está bailando.  
Nosotros estamos bailando. 

 

There are some verbs that have a present participle that changes its spelling. Here are some common examples:

 

Más ejemplos
caer	cayendo
creer	creyendo
leer	leyendo
traer	trayendo
incluir	incluyendo
oír	oyendo
ir	yendo
decir	diciendo
pedir	pidiendo
repetir	repitiendo
seguir	siguiendo
venir	viniendo
poder	pudiendo
dormir	durmiendo
morir	muriendo

 

OJO: The present participle of “ir” is special. We will very rarely use “estar + yendo” to describe what is going on in the moment. Instead we will just use the regular present tense.

Por ejemplo: You would never say “Estoy yendo a la tienda”. We would use the present tense: “Voy a la tienda”. However, sometimes you will see “yendo” used in a way such as this:

Use of "yendo"
Yendo por la calle principal, verás la muralla.	Going down the main street, you will see the wall.

 

¡Practicamos en la página siguiente!