Present Progressive or Past Progressive Continuous Tense Tips
hi everybody my name is Alisha in this
episode I’m going to talk about the
present progressive tense and the past
progressive tense you might also know
these as the continuous tense but many
people have questions about the
difference between these two so I’m
going to talk about a few different ways
that we can use these grammar points and
some patterns that you might commonly
see don’t let’s begin first let’s look
at in general the progressive or the
continuous tense when should we use it
we use these tenses for continuing
actions so their actions that are
temporary so they’re only for a short
period of time or for a limited period
of time so these are ongoing actions
during a certain time period so the time
period can be short it can be very long
many years but it’s something that’s
temporary so depending on the situation
you can choose to apply the progressive
or the continuous tense it just depends
on kind of the the action and you have
the period of time so it’s sort of up to
you to make that decision in some cases
but we’ll see a few examples of maybe
some common ways to use this so another
point I want to make about the
progressive tense is that there are some
verbs that are rarely used or it’s
fairly uncommon for these verbs to be
used in the progressive tense so it’s a
category really a verb so that means for
example your mental state verbs like
think or know or understand and
emotional verbs like for example like or
love so these are verbs which typically
we don’t use in the progressive tense of
course sometimes we do like I’m thinking
about for example is a common one but
verbs for example the verb like we don’t
generally say very commonly I am liking
or he is loving or something like that
generally we use these more for the
simple present tense or the simple past
tense so they’re a bit more common
in in that type of grammar so we won’t
see that so much today okay
so with this in mind let’s begin with
the present tense the present
progressive tense or the present
continuous tense a few things I want to
talk about with the present form first
as we’ve talked about already up here is
for actions that are happening now so
its present tense meaning they’re
occurring now something that is
happening now so basically I am teaching
for example so remember we see the
progressive tense in this ing ending
this ending on our verbs in this case I
am teaching it’s something happening now
you are listening in this case ing form
it is raining when we talk about the
weather or he is taking a shower so
something that is happening now it’s
just a short period of time
a temporary action we can use the
present progressive tense to talk about
that so to kind of give a visual of this
then I’ve created a timeline up here in
the top on the top right so this point
here this is the present I’m talking
about now if you can imagine this is an
action that is happening around to the
present time so maybe I started teaching
for example a few minutes ago
I’m teaching now and then in the future
maybe it’s going to finish very soon so
this is maybe a good way to visualize
the present progressive tense something
that’s continuing and it’s going to end
maybe in the near future depending on
the action so that might be helpful the
second point I want to talk about with
the present progressive tense though is
how we can use it for trends so here I
talked about how we use it for actions
like that we are in control over someone
else’s in control of we can also use the
present progressive tense however for
trends so something happening in your
community or in your society for example
so I have here lots of people are
watching black mirror on Netflix these
days so this could be like one example
this is an example perhaps of a recent
trend I’ve noticed here I’ve got the
progressive tense to show that maybe
it’s temporary it’s a
and really another example Twitter is
becoming a place for up-to-the-minute
news for example so this is another
example something that’s just kind of
happening recently or some trend you’ve
noticed recently you could apply this or
you could explain this rather with the
present progressive tense all right
final plan our final sorry final use of
this I want to talk about it’s for
future plans so we can use the present
progressive tense actually to talk about
future plans it’s slightly different
this this grammar point is slightly
different but you will see it it’s
similar to going to using going to if
you have a plan that you are sure it’s
100% definite you are going to do that
thing you can describe that plan using
the progressive tense so for example I’m
going to the beach tomorrow
so here I’ve used going in the
progressive tense this means this is
something I am definitely going to do
I’m going to the beach tomorrow but you
will see this progressive tense form
used same thing in the second example
sentence we are baking a cake for my
friend’s birthday party so again a
temporary action not something we do
every day kind of a special action
something that’s only for a limited time
period but it’s something I’ve decided
to do it’s definite in the future
so I can use this progressive form of
the verb to describe that so these are
three ways that you may see the present
progressive form used okay let’s
continue on then to the past progressive
so the rules that we talked about for
present progressive like actions that
are happening now can still apply in the
past it’s just that the action has
already completed so to give a visual
then this is an action that was
continuing in the past it’s finished
we’re done with this action it’s it’s
over it has stopped but it was
continuing at some point so we often
include a specific point in time along
with this you might not necessarily see
this here because it’s an action
happening now but in the past if we need
to explain clearly when an action was
happening we can attach this specific
point in time so let’s look at a cup
of examples first I was doing my
homework at 8 p.m. last night so here I
was doing my homework here is our past
progressive tense and here we have the
specific point in time 8:00 p.m. last
night so when was I doing my homework at
8:00 p.m. last night if I say I was
doing my homework we don’t know when if
I say I am doing my homework it means
now so it’s very clear therefore in the
past we don’t know when the action was
happening unless we attach a specific
point in time let’s look at one more
example he was driving to work at 9:00
this morning so here is our specific
point in time
so both of these sentences it’s like
when would I use the sentence how do I
know when I need to use this sentence
these are perhaps responses to a
question like what were you doing last
night or what were you doing this
morning what was he doing this morning
if you need information about someone’s
activities you can use a question like
that and expect to get an answer like
this so sometimes these questions imply
a little bit of like suspicion like what
were you doing last night or what was he
doing this morning so something that you
don’t know some action a temporary
action you don’t know about another
person so there might be a little
element of suspicion here but these
aren’t ways to talk about a continuing
action in the past okay I want to talk
about two other patterns though the
first one is for interrupted actions so
we can use the past progressive
to talk about an interrupted action and
this is something that we’ll see we use
the word when to describe this so first
I want to introduce the examples and
then I want to talk about it more let’s
look at this I was listening to music
when the phone rang so here I have my
past progressive was listening to music
here I have when when the phone rang and
here the second action in the sentence
is in the simple past tense so with past
tense I have here so this is the action
that was continuing and then
something happened that stopped this
action so on our timeline if you want to
imagine it this point is like an action
continuing that then stopped and was
replaced by a different action actually
that they should probably be in the past
though here so something in the past was
continuing something happened in this
case the phone rang something happened
here and my action maybe changed to a
different action this is sort of a
visualization of what happened in this
sentence when shows us the point at
which something changed when shows us
that moment of interruption so we see
past progressive in the first part when
to show the point of change and simple
past tense to show the action that
interrupted the first action so there’s
a lot happening here let’s look at
another example he was cleaning his
house when the electricity went out so
when the electricity went out means
stopped or turned off the electricity
went out it went it went off
so here again past progressive he was
cleaning his house when is my point of
interruption when the electricity went
out so he’s cleaning cleaning cleaning
and then the electricity went out so
something happened and then maybe he had
to change his action here so we use when
and the simple past tense to show an
interrupted action alright last thing I
want to talk about here is for
simultaneous actions we can use the past
progressive tense simultaneous means at
the same time as something else so two
actions happening at the same time for
this one you’ll notice that we use the
word while while is used here so let’s
look at the examples I was listening to
music while doing my homework here I
have the progressive tense in both parts
of the sentence and I’ve connected it
with while in this case so while shows
that the two things are happening at the
same time so you could say I was
listening to music and doing my homework
that’s pretty clear but if you really
want to emphasize that nuance of those
two things
opening at the same time you can use
while let’s look at the last example she
was texting her friends while cooking
dinner
so this while shows us that these two
things are happening at the same time
this part shows us it was happening in
the past as well so these are a few
situations where you might see the past
progressive tense but they’re referring
to continuing actions and maybe an
action that stopped or maybe an action
that is going at the same time as
another action so there’s a lot of stuff
we can do with the past progressive and
the present progressive tense all right
so I know that was a lot of information
but I hope that it was helpful for you
if you have any questions or comments or
if you just want to try to make a
sentence please feel free in the comment
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thanks very much for watching this
episode and I will see you again soon
bye bye