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Are You Progressing with ProgressiveTenses?

Hello, I’m Miss Fang. Today we are going tolook at the progressive verb tenses. Progressive tenses express actions thatare unfinished or in progress. There are three progressive verb tenses: thepast progressive, the present progressive, and the future progressive.Progressive tenses are the same as continuous tenses.

Present Progressive

We will start with the present progressive,the most common progressive tense. You form the present progressive tense byusing a form of the verb be followed by an –ing verb. For example, "I amwatching a movie."

It is easy to confuse the simple presentand the present progressive. What's the difference between, "It rains inSeattle" and "It is raining in Seattle"?

"It rains in Seattle" states thatit rains in general. It does not necessarily mean that it is raining at themoment of speaking. "It is raining in Seattle" means that the rainstarted in the past, is happening now, and will probably continue into thefuture.

Now, at this time, and currently are commonadverbs in the present progressive.

The present progressive can also express ascheduled event in the future. For example, this sentence is in the presentprogressive: "She is starting school next semester."

The meaning here is the same as thesentence in the simple future: "She is going to start school nextsemester." The present progressive and simple future (with be going to)sometimes have the same .

You can also use present progressive withalways to say that something disturbs you. "My neighbor is always playingloud music at night" or "I am always making mistakes with verbtenses!"

Past Progressive

Let's move on to the past progressive. Thepast progressive describes an event that was in progress in the past. To formthe past progressive use was or were followed by an –ing verb. For example,"I was working late last night."

Sentences in the past progressive oftenhave two actions.

For example, "It was snowing when theplane landed in Denver."

Notice that the second action, landed, isin the simple past.

The past progressive can also express an actionin progress interrupted by a second action. "I was running when I slippedand fell" or "I was sleeping when you called."

It is possible to have two progressiveactions in the same sentence if the two actions are happening at the same time.You could say, "I was sleeping when you were working".

Future Progressive

The future progressive tense describes anevent that will be in progress in the future. To form the future progressivetense, use will be followed by an –ing verb. For example, "I will be waitingfor you when you finish work."

The future progressive can be useful whenyou are making plans. Imagine your friend wants you to pick her up the airporttomorrow. But you have to work.

You could tell her, "I'm sorry, but Iwill be working when your plane gets in."

Sometimes, the future progressive is analternative for the simple future form be going to. "I will be studyinglater" has a similar meaning to "I am going to be studyinglater." The future progressive just emphasizes the continuing nature ofthe future action. You can learn more about future tenses in this previousepisode of Everyday Grammar.

Stative Verbs

There are some verbs that cannot be used inany of the progressive tenses. You would say "I own a car," not"I am owning a car." Own is a stative verb. Stative verbs describeunchanging conditions or situations. Stative verbs often refer to mental statessuch as know, realize, like, believe, understand, love, hate, appear, andexist.

A few verbs have both stative andnon-stative meanings. Let's look at the verb think. "I think the book isgood" is stative. The action does not change. "I am thinking aboutyou" is progressive. It shows a temporary, changing action. Sensory verbslike see, taste, feel, smell, and hear work in the same way.

Progressive verbs are especially useful fordescribing changing emotional states. For that reason, they are very common insong lyrics. We will leave you with a few examples.