Greetings all. I’m back again, and as I promised last time, I’m going to write a few words about the present continuous (progressive) tense. This is an important tense because we use it in two different situations. Unlike the simple past and the simple present tenses discussed earlier, this tense (and all the other tenses) uses a helping verb in both positive and negative statements, as well as in questions.
The first way that we use this tense is to talk about events that are happening right now – that is, events that are in process. The other way we use this tense is to talk about FUTURE events or activities. With this tense we employ the present tense of the verb “to be” as a helping verb and the present participle form of the main verb (this ends in – “ing”).
Examples showing the action is in progress now:
The sun is shining brightly right now.
The students are studying at the moment.
I am writing a blog at this time.
Susan isn’t listening to her teacher.
Examples talking about a Future events or activities:
Susan is playing tennis tomorrow.
What are you doing tonight?
Are you going to New York next week?
That’s a wrap for now. In a future blog we’ll look at the past continuous tense. Then we’ll talk about the importance of the integration process.
