Practice Present Continuous Tense | English Grammar Course Checkup

Hi, everyone. I’m Esther.

Let’s start a checkup for the present continuous tense.

There’s a lot to learn, so let’s get started.

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.