How to Learn the Present Progressive in English

Present progressive is one of the many English grammar tenses. A tense refers to the timing of a verb's action or being. Timing can be in the present, the past or the future. These tenses can be split into continuous (progressive), simple and perfect. Continuous tenses refer to an action that happens at a specific point in time. Present progressive is also known as present continuous.

Instructions

1. Practice the present progressive tense by choosing a subject and an action that can be done at the present time. For example, choose a person named Sean as your subject and "travel" as your action.

2. Combine your subject with the appropriate version of the auxiliary verb "be". The forms are "am", "are" or "is".

3. Add "ing" to the infinitive form of your verb. For example, travel becomes traveling and you now have the partial sentence "Sean is traveling".

4. Finish the sentence with any extra information about how or where the subject is doing the action. For example, our finished sentence is "Sean is traveling to New York".

Tips & Warnings

• You can also use present progressive to indicate a future action. An example is "I am driving to Florida tomorrow".

• Reverse the order of the subject and auxiliary verb to make a question. An example is "Is he talking to Geeta?".

References

• English Club: Present Continuous Tense
• english-hilfen: Present Progressive/Continuous - Brief version
• Learn English: The Tenses