Basic English Grammar Course | Present Continuous Tense | Learn and Practice

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.’

For this checkup of the present continuous tense,

we'll look at how this tense can be used to  describe an action that's happening right now.

Let's take a look at the first sentence.

‘You -blank- learning English.’

Remember for this tense, we start  with the subject and the ‘be’ verb

and then the verb ‘-ing’.

We already have the verb ‘-ing’ here, so we need the ‘be’ verb.

The subject in the first sentence is ‘you’.

For ‘you’, ‘we’, and ‘they’,  we use the ‘be’ verb - ‘are’,

so the correct answer is,

‘You are learning English’ right now.

The next sentence says,

‘She _blank_ not watching TV.’

This is the negative form of  the present continuous tense.

We have the word ‘not’ before the verb ‘-ing’,

However, we're missing the ‘be’ verb again.

What is the be verb to use  if the subject is ‘she’?

the correct answer is ‘is’.

‘She is not watching TV.’

This one says, ‘I _blank_ studying now.’

The subject here is ‘I’.

Again think of the ‘be’ verb that goes before the subject ‘I’.

The ‘be’ verb is ‘am’.

‘I am studying now.’

We can also use a contraction and say, ‘I'm studying now’

If we wanted to turn this into the negative form,

we can also say, ‘I'm not studying now.’

Now, take a look at the next  sentence and find the mistake.

‘Layla is watch a movie.’

Here we have the subject and the subject pronoun for Layla would be ‘she’.

We have the correct ‘be’ verb - ‘is’,

However, you'll notice we forgot  the ‘-ing’ at the end of the verb.

We need to say, ‘watching’.

‘Layla is watching a movie.’

The next sentence says,

‘They playing soccer now.’

What's missing?

If you got it the correct answer is we need the ‘be’ verb – ‘are’

because the subject is ‘they’.

‘They are playing soccer now.’

And finally, ‘What do you do?’

If you want to ask somebody  what they're doing right now,

you say, 'what’... and the ‘be’ verb – ‘are... you.. doing?’

‘What are you doing?’

Let's move on to the next practice.

For this checkup we'll talk about the present continuous tense

and how it can be used to describe an action that started in the past and continues today.

It's a longer action.

Let's take a look at the first sentence.

‘He _blank_ studying economics.’

Remember for this tense, we take the  subject, a ‘be’ verb, and then verb ‘-ing’.

Here we already have the verb ‘-ing’, ‘studying’.

So what are we missing?

The ‘be’ verb.

The correct ‘be’ verb for  the subject ‘he’ is ‘is’.

So, ‘He is studying economics.’

The next sentence says, ‘They're _blank_ for the fight.’

The verb we want to use is ‘train’.

Now we already have the 'be' verb here.

It's in the contraction ‘there’  because it's ‘they are’.

All we have to do now is add ‘-ing’ to the verb.

‘They're training for the fight these days.’

And ‘We _blank_ teaching at the school.’

Again we're missing the ‘be’ verb.

What is the ‘be’ verb for ‘we’?

The correct answer is ‘are’.

‘We are teaching at the school.’

Now let's look for the  mistakes in the next sentence.

‘Ben is study to become a doctor.’

Can you find the error?

Well we have the subject and we have the proper ‘be verb’.

What we're missing is the ‘-ing’ at the end of ‘study’.

The correct answer is, ‘Ben is studying to become a doctor’.

Let's look at the next sentence.

‘I don't reading that book.’

hmm

‘I don't reading that book.’

To form the negative in the present continuous, we don't use ‘do’ or ‘does’

We use the ‘be’ verb. What is the be verb for ‘I’?

The correct answer is ‘am’.

‘I am not reading that book.’

There is no contraction for ‘am not’.

Finally, ‘They are to learn English.’

We have the subject and we have the correct ‘be’ verb,

but remember we need verb ‘-ing’.

Therefore, the correct answer is,

‘They are learning English.’

Let's move on to the next checkup.

For this checkup we'll take a look at how the present continuous tense

can be used to talk about future plans.

Let's take a look.

The first sentence says, ‘They're play a game tonight.’

The verb we want to use is ‘play’.

Remember we start with the subject  and here we have it, ‘they’.

Then we have the ‘be’ verb.

In this case we used a contraction  for ‘they are – ‘they’re’.

That's correct.

After that we have to add ‘-ing’ to the end of the verb,

so the correct answer is, ‘They're playing a game tonight.’

The next sentence says, 'We _blank_ not studying tomorrow.’

Looks good but there's a word that's missing.

This is the negative form because we have ‘not’.

We simply need the ‘be’ verb for ‘we’.

The correct ‘be’ verb is ‘are’. ‘We are not studying tomorrow.’

The next sentence says, ‘Lynn is _blank_ out tonight.’

and we want to use the verb ‘go’.

Remember 'Lynn' and then the ‘be’ verb – ‘is’.

That's correct. All we have to do is add ‘-ing’.

‘Lynn is going out tonight.’

To make this negative you can say,

‘Lynn is not going out tonight.’ or ‘Lynn isn't going out tonight.’

The next sentence says, ‘Laura isn't study this evening.’

Can you find the mistake?

Remember we have to add  ‘-ing’ to the end of the verb,

so we need to say,

‘Laura isn't studying this evening.’

The next sentence says,

‘My sons will playing chess later.’

We are talking about a future plan,

so you might be tempted to use ‘well’ or ‘will’, I'm sorry.

However, instead of saying ‘will’, we use the ‘be’ verb.

‘My sons are playing chess later.’

And finally, ‘She's not to eating dinner tonight.’

There's an extra word in here that we don't need.

What is it?

It's ‘to’.

Remember, subject - ‘be’ verb, not verb ‘-ing’.

We do not need ‘to’ in this sentence.

All right well that's the end of this checkup.

Let's move on.

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.