Learn Present Continuous Tense | English Grammar Course

Hi, everybody. I'm Esther.

I'm so excited to be teaching you the present continuous tense in this video.

This tense is used to describe: an action that's happening right now,

a longer action in progress , and something happening in the near future.

There's a lot to learn, but don't worry I'll guide you through it.

Let's get started.

The present continuous tense is used to talk about actions that are happening right now.

For example,

‘I'm teaching English’ and ‘You are studying English.’

Let's take a look at some more examples.

The first sentence says, ‘He is watching a movie’.

We start with the subject and a ‘be’ verb.

In this case, the subject is ‘he’.

For ‘he’ / ‘she’ and ‘it’, we use the ‘be’ verb ‘is’.

Then you'll notice I added an ‘-ing’ to the end of the verb ‘watch’.

‘He is watching a movie.’

The next sentence says, ‘Tim is playing a computer game.’

He's doing that right now.

Tim is a ‘he’, therefore, again we use the ‘be’ verb ‘is’.

And again you'll notice I added ‘-ing’ to the end of the verb.

The next sentence says,

‘The machine is making a noise.’

Now pay attention to the subject, ‘the machine’.

What is the proper pronoun?

The answer is ‘it’, therefore we use the ‘be’ verb ‘is’.

‘The machine is making a noise.’

We can also say, ‘It is making a noise’. Or the contraction, ‘It's making a noise’.

And finally, ‘Tom and Ben are speaking English’.

In this case, you'll notice that we use the ‘be’ verb ‘are’.

Can you figure out why?

That's because Tom and Ben - the subject pronoun for these two is ‘they’.

‘They are speaking English.’

Let's move on to the next usage.

The present continuous tense is also used to describe a longer action in progress.

Even though you might not be doing the action right now.

Let's take a look at some examples.

The first sentence says,

‘I'm reading an interesting book these days.’

In this case, the subject is ‘I’, so the ‘be’ verb is ‘am’.

In this example, we use the contraction ‘I'm’ by putting ‘I’ and ‘am’ together.

Again, you'll notice there's an ‘-ing’ after the verb.

The next sentence says,

‘You are studying to become an English teacher.’

The subject here is ‘you’,

therefore the ‘be’ verb is ‘are’.

Next, ‘Steven is preparing for the IELTS exam.’

The subject here is ‘Steven’ which is a ‘he’,

therefore we use the ‘be’ verb ‘is’.

And finally, ‘John and June are working at a company.’

If you look at the subject ‘John and June’, the pronoun for that is ‘they’.

That's why we use the ‘be’ verb ‘are’.

‘They are working at a company.’

Let's move on to the next usage.

The present continuous is also used to talk about near future plans.

Let's take a look.

‘She is meeting some friends tonight.’

That's going to happen in the near future.

You'll notice that we have 'she', so the ‘be’ verb is ‘is’.

And then we added an ‘-ing’ to the end of the verb ‘meet’.

The next example says, ‘We are going on vacation in July.’

The subject here is ‘we’, therefore we use the ‘be’ verb ‘are’.

We can also use a contraction and say, ‘We're going on vacation in July.’

Again, another near future plan.

The next example says,

‘David is learning to drive tomorrow.’

‘tomorrow’ is the near future.

‘David’ is the subject.

‘David’ is a ‘he’, so we use ‘is’.

And lastly, ‘Vicki and I are teaching English next week.’

‘Vicky and I’… If we think about the subject pronoun is ‘we’.

That's why we used ‘are’. ‘We are teaching.’

Let's move on.

Now let's talk about the negative form of the present continuous tense.

I have some examples here.

These two examples are for actions that are happening right now, or longer actions.

These last two are for near future plans.

Let's take a look.

The first sentence says, ‘I am not having fun.’

Now that's not true for me because I am having fun,

but in this example I am not having fun.

You'll notice that the word ‘not’ goes between the ‘be’ verb and the ‘verb -ing’.

In the second example it says, ‘Jane isn't doing her homework.’

Here we use the contraction ‘isn't’ for ‘is not’,

so just like the first sentence, we put ‘not’ between ‘is’ and ‘verb -ing’.

The next sentence says, ‘You're not seeing him tonight.’

Here we have a contraction for ‘you are’.

‘You're not seeing him tonight.’

And finally, ‘We are not running tomorrow morning.’

Here we have the subject ‘we’, therefore, we use the ‘be’ verb ‘are’.

Don’t forget to add a ‘not’ after that to make it negative.

Let's move on.

Now let's talk about how to form ‘be’ verb questions in the present continuous tense.

The first example here says,

‘Is he waiting for you?’

or ‘Is he waiting for you?’

We start with the ‘be’ verb.

Take a look at the subject though.

The subject is ‘he’ and that's why we start with the ‘be’ verb ‘is’.

‘Is he waiting for you?’

You can answer, ‘Yes, he is.’ or ‘No he isn't.’

The second sentence says,

‘Are you coming to class?’

The subject here is ‘you’ and that's why we start with ‘are’.

‘Are you coming to class?’

You can answer, ‘Yes I am.’ or ‘No, I'm not.’

The next question says, ‘Is he preparing to study in Canada?’

The subject is ‘he’, and so we start with ‘is’.

The answer can be, ‘Yes, he is.’ or it can also be ‘No, he isn't.’

Finally the last question says, ‘Are they going out tonight?’

The subject here is ‘they’, and so we start with ‘are’.

The answer can be ‘Yes, they are.’ or ‘No, they aren't.’

Let's move on.

Now let's talk about the WH question form for the present continuous tense.

I have some examples here

and you'll notice that we start with the WH questions:

what, where, when, who, why, and how.

What comes after?

You'll notice it's the ‘be’ verbs: ‘are’, ‘is’, and if the subject is ‘I’, ‘am’.

So after that you have the subject and then the verb -ing.

Let's take a look at the first sentence.

‘What are you doing?’

I'm asking about right now.

For example, ‘I'm teaching English.’

‘Where are you going?’ ‘I'm going to the store.’

‘When is it starting?’ ‘It's starting at 3.’

I can be talking about a movie a show anything can be ‘it’.

‘Who is she talking to?’ ‘She's talking to Bob.’

‘Why is she crying?’ ‘She's crying because she's sad.’

And finally, ‘How is it going?’ ‘It's going well.’

Good job everyone! You just completed the lesson on the present continuous tense.

This tense is not easy, but you did a great job.

And keep watching to learn more.

I know English can be difficult but with practice and effort you will improve.

I promise.

See you in the next video.