Present Progressive Aspect

Your school teacher must have told you about tenses. Right? There are two tense present and past. Some people consider future as a tense, but it is not a tense it’s time. The word tense refers to the period when the action occurred. 

Verbs are used to distinguish the  tenses from each other. So, there aren’t any verbs for future, we make future sentences with the help of to be verb “will or shall”, but for the sake of convenience, we will consider it as a tense for now. Verbs express the tenses. 

Tenses and Aspect.

Now you can think of tense as a tree having three branches: present, past, or as a hierarchy. Tenses are further categorised into aspects. 

Aspects are a subcategory of tenses that refers to the flow of time within a particular tense. It shows the event's timing, whether the event is completed in indefinite time or continuously repeated.

There are three aspects of tense :

• Indefinite
• Progressive.
• Perfect.
• The perfect continuous aspect can be derived from the perfect and progressive aspect.  

All of these aspects of a tense refers to a different time. Aspects are formed by an appropriate form of auxiliary verbs such as be or have.

Present tense:

The present tense has four aspects.

1. Present Indefinite Aspect ( I like meat).
2. Present Progressive Aspect ( I am eating pizza).
3. Present Perfect Aspect ( Ali has lived in America since childhood)
4. Present Perfect Progressive Aspect ( Ali has been living in America since childhood).

In this lesson, we will learn about the Present Progressive Aspect. The structure of the present progressive Aspect, its uses, and the verb used with present progressive aspect usually known as present continuous Aspect.

Present Progressive Aspect:

The present progressive aspect, also known as the present continuous aspect, shows the continuity of action.  It represents that the action is unfinished and tells us about the progress of an ongoing action or event.

Formation / Structure:

The structure of the present progressive is not much complicated. Present progressive or continuous aspect is formed by using auxiliary verb ‘to be’ and present participle form of the verb ‘-ing,’ which is why it is a continuous aspect. We cannot form a present continuous aspect without using present participle along with a verb.

Positive/ Affirmative sentence:

Example:

• Aleena is sleeping.
• Zainab is eating fish.
• I am going home.
• He is going to school.
• Ali is writing a story.
• You are watching cartoons.

Negative sentence:

Example:

• Aleena is not sleeping.
• Zainab is not eating fish.
• I am not going home.
• He is not going to school.
• Ali is not writing a story.
• You are not watching cartoons.

Interrogative sentence:

Example:

• Is Aleena sleeping?
• Is Zainab eating fish?
• Am I going home?
• Is he going to school?
• Is Ali writing a story?
• Is Harry watching cartoons?

Present progressive Aspect uses

There are four primary uses of present progressive aspect. 

1. Something is happening now.
2. Something is happening around now.
3. Something planned for the near future. 
4. Repetition and irritation with always.

There can be more uses, but these are the primary uses of present progressive aspects necessary to learn at the fundamental level.

Something is happening now.

The very first and the primary usage of present progressive aspect is to express the idea of something happening now, at the moment. You can also use it to show something not happening at the very moment.

Example: 

• I am drinking a milkshake.
• Are you going to the picnic?
• Alan is not watching a movie with him.
• George is not doing his homework.
• why aren’t you eating your meal? ( informative question)
• I am sitting.
• She is not standing.

Something is happening around now.

The uses of present continuous tense/ aspect are not only limited to something happening at the moment. You can also use it to express the idea of something around now. We use it to communicate actions in longer progress. However, we might not be doing it at the exact time. Now can be today, yesterday, this week, this month, this century. You can express work going on since time and is still in progress today.

Example:

• I am preparing for my exams.
• I am not studying since Monday.
• I am studying to become an Engineer.
• Are you writing any books these days?

Something is planned for the near future. 

The third use of the present progressive aspect is to express actions planned for the near future. You can use it to indicate something will happen in the near future or not.

Example:

• I am going shopping tomorrow.
• I am meeting him next week.
• Are you planning anything for next week?
• She is not coming with me tonight.
• Repetition and irritation with always.

Repetition and irritation with always.

The last essential use of the present progressive aspect is to express the idea of something irritating constantly. You have to use ‘ always’ or ‘ constantly’  between to be the verb and main verb to express the opinion.

Example:

• He is always late for school.
• She is always complaining about her acne issues.
• He is constantly making weird noises.
• I don’t like talking to her; she is always complaining.

Tip

Never use non-continuous verbs in the present progressive tense. Instead of using non-continuous verbs, you can use the present simple tense.

• He is loving me. (wrong)
• He loves me. ( right)
• I am hearing you. ( wrong)
• I hear you( right).

Conclusion:

These were the necessary things to learn about the present progressive aspect. There is not much difference between tense and aspect; aspect is a subcategory of tense.  The four uses of the present continuous aspect are the basic ones; you can find other usages and use them in your writing or speaking.