Learn CONTINUOUS TENSES in English the EASY way!

Quack, quack. Hi, my name's Ronnie, and I'm going to go over some grammar with you.

Do you hate grammar as much as I do? Oh, it's so confusing. I really, really, really love

teaching, but I really hate grammar. But I want to make it easy for you, so I found a

new trick. Yes! Check this out. Tricks by Ronnie. Ronnie's turning tricks. [Laughs]

We're going to do a little review to help you always get this continuous or progressive

tense malarkey down pat. There is one method or one trick that's really cool. Ready?

Meow. The answer is verb+ing. So, I want you to remember one thing from this lesson. In

English, as soon as you have something that's continuous or progressive, which is exactly

the same... Sometimes your textbook will say "continuous", some textbooks or some people

will say "progressive". It's exactly the same. But what you have to know and the cool trick

is that as soon as you have continuous or progressive, all this means is somewhere in

the magic of the sentence there's going to be verb+ing. Cool. So, present continuous,

past continuous, future continuous, somewhere in these sentences, you're going to have a

verb+ing. The more you study grammar, you get into past perfect continuous. Oh.

Present perfect continuous. Don't worry about those right now, but just remember that whatever

you have in progressive or continuous is going to have verbing somewhere in the sentence.

So let's just go through the easy parts. We're going to start, as we should, with the present

tense. So present continuous or present progressive is the subject, plus, in this sentence, because

it's present tense, we're going to have the present tense of the verb "to be". So: "is",

"am", "are" makes this present, "is", "am", "are". Negative: "isn't", "am not", or "aren't".

Plus your continuous verbing. So, present continuous is subject plus "is", "am", "are",

and your magic verbing. Cool. As an example... [Makes noises] I am watching you. Or you are

watching me, aren't you? Yeah, you're watching me, but I'm watching you. "I am watching"

you. "She is learning.", "They are listening." So, this is our example of "am", "is", "are",

plus verbing. Negative example: "He isn't sleeping." Are you sleeping? Wake up. Come

on. He isn't sleeping. You're not sleeping. Good. When we use this grammar, we have subject

plus the verb "to be", plus our magic verbing. We use present continuous for actions that

are only happening right now at the moment. You cannot use this at any other point. You

cannot say: "Yesterday, I am eating." Oh, Ronnie confused. Yesterday, yesterday, yesterday,

yesterday. Ah, haha: "was eating" is good because this is past continuous.

So this is where, and probably the first and only time in your life, grammar's going to

make sense. If present continuous or present progressive is the verb "to be" plus verbing,

the only thing that we're going to change to make it past is we're going to change the

verb "to be" into the past tense, which is "was" or "were". So to change it from present

continuous to past continuous, you're just changing "to be" verb. And then, of course,

you're going to add the verbing, because this is our magic. For example: "He was walking..."

He was walking down the street. Usually, when we use past continuous or past progressive,

we use it for telling a story.

So, if you want to tell your friend about something really

crazy that happened yesterday: "We were talking, and all of a sudden, a giant panda bear came

out and gave us a kiss." Yeah, good story, buddy. "I wasn't talking to him..." This is

an example of the negative. So, you can use "was", "wasn't", "were", or "weren't". Remember:

"He was", "We were", "I wasn't". Be careful with your subject and your verb agreement.

This is really important in all of the grammar.

So, present perfect is present of "to be" plus verbing. Past perfect is "was", "were",

plus verbing. Oh, cool. So what do you think future continuous would be, or future progressive?

We're going to have the subject, plus "will be", or if it's negative, we're going to use

"won't be", then the magic, the point is you're going to have verbing. With this one also,

it's very important that we put in a time marker. So, we use future continuous or future

progressive to talk about some plans in the future, and it's very important that we include

when the action happened or that there's a time marker. So: "We will be eating pizza

at 9 tonight." Delicious. Ronnie loves pizza. Do you want to buy me some pizza? Hungry.

Mm, I like Hawaiian; I like the pineapple and the ham, or the bacon. What's your favourite

kind of pizza? Will you be eating pizza tonight? Oh: "He won't be leaving on Monday." So, we

have the subject. In this one, we have the future simple hiding here: "will" or "won't".

Oh, hey, there's our verbing and our "be" verb. So, the only thing that changes here

is we've added the modal of "will" or "won't", and we've got "be" plus verb+ing. Again, it's

really important to never change the "be". You cannot say: "She will am going". You can

never change the "be" verb, here. The thing that agrees with the subject is going to be

the modal "will". So: "We will be eating", "He won't be leaving".

This is the trick: As soon as you see something that's continuous or progressive, you always

have to put a verb+ing somewhere in the sentence. Present is the present of the verb "to be"

plus verbing, past is "was" or "were" plus verbing, and the future

is "will" or "won't be" plus verbing.

What will you be doing on your vacation when you come to Toronto? Do you want to meet me?

I've got some information coming up for you on how you can hang out with me

in the great city of Toronto.

Till then, adios.