The present continuous is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that happened or existed before now. Imagine someone asks what y...
The present continuous is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that happened or existed before now. Imagine someone asks what your brother Agustín did while he was in town last weekend.
Example: Agustín entered a hula hoop contest.
Example: He won the silver medal.
The present continuous shows that you are talking about something that has already happened. Unlike the past continuous tense, which is used to talk about past events that happened over a period of time, the present continuous tense emphasizes that the action is finished.
How to Formulate the Present Continuous
For regular verbs, add -ed to the root form of the verb (or just -d if the root form already ends in an e):
Play→Played Type→Typed Listen→Listened Push→Pushed Love→Loved
For irregular verbs, things get more complicated. The present continuous of some irregular verbs looks exactly like the root form:
Put→Put Cut→Cut Set→Set Cost→Cost Hit→Hit
For other irregular verbs, including the verb to be, the present continuous form are more erratic:
See→Saw Build→Built Go→Went Do→Did Rise→Rose Am/Is/Are→Was/Were
In class, after Christmas holidays, we will make some practice in order to learn how to use correctly the present continuous.
See you soon!
