In Lección 2, we introduced you to the present tense, and explained that the meaning of this tense is not necessarily what is happening in a given moment, but rather it expresses actions in the present that are habitual, or occur regularly.
For example:
The present tense is being used to indicate actions that occur frequently in the present, or are part of a routine or normal schedule. Often, with the present tense, you will see words and phrases such as generalmente, todos los días, or usualmente.
Spanish has another verb tense with which to refer to actions in the present. This tense—the present progressive—rather than referring to habitual actions, describes or expresses an action while it is in progress, at the moment that the speaker is referring to that action. The present progressive tense (what you might be more familiar thinking of as the verb “to be” and the -ing forms of a verb) indicates that an event or occurrence is happening at the same time it is being communicated. You will have a clue as to when to use this tense if you can think in the following terms: if you can add ahora mismo, or en este momento to both the question and the answer, then you will want to use the present progressive tense. Look and listen to the following examples, to give you a better sense of how this tense is utilized in order to communicate actions in progress.
| Lourdes | ¿Qué está haciendo Mario? (ahora) |
| Ramón | Él está escribiendo una carta a su novia. (ahora)  |
| Marco | ¿Qué estás haciendo? (ahora mismo) |
| Luz | Estoy pensando en mi novio. |
| Maricruz | ¿Qué están haciendo los profesores de literatura? (en este momento) |
| Nicolás | Están corrigiendo los exámenes finales.  |
| Óscar | ¿Usted está estudiando? |
| Reyna | No, estoy viendo televisión. |
| Eduardo | ¿Qué están haciendo tus padres? |
| Soledad | Están tomando una siesta.  |
As you can probably discern from the examples, the person asking the question wants to know what the other person is actually doing in the moment that he/she is asking the question, and the response indicates what the person is really doing.
You can also see from the examples that you have just learned another important use of the verb estar, part of the present progressive tense. In order to form the present progressive, you must conjugate estar correctly according to the subject of the sentence, and then combine estar with what is known as the present participle, or the -ing form.
Verbs that end in –ar have one ending, and verbs that end in –er and –ir have another. For verbs that end in –ar, such as practicar, hablar, or bailar, you take off the –ar ending, and then add –ando:
| bailar | bail- | bailando |
|---|---|---|
| hablar | habl- | hablando |
For verbs whose infinitive ends in either –er or –ir, like comer, beber, vivir, or escribir, you take of the –er or –ir ending and then add –iendo:
| comer | com- | comiendo |
|---|---|---|
| escribir | escrib- | escribiendo |
In the tables below, you will see an example of the conjugation of the present progressive tense for an –ar (nadar), –er (beber), and –ir (salir) verb.
| beber – to drink (presente progresivo) | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| salir – to leave/to go out (presente progresivo) | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
There are a few verbs that have a slightly irregular form in the present participle; three of the most frequently used ones are leer, ir, and dormir. The present participle of leer is leyendo, the present participle of ir is yendo, and the present participle of dormir is durmiendo. (You will note that the o in dormir changes to a u, which is what classifies it as an irregular present participle).
 Estoy leyendo el periódico. |
 |
| Mauricio está yendo al teatro. |
|
| Mis hijos están durmiendo. |
Candela Citations
- Lesson 6: Estructuras gramaticales . Authored by: Open Learning Initiative. Provided by: Carnegie Mellon. Located at: https://oli.cmu.edu/jcourse/lms/students/syllabus.do?section=037856eb80020ca6007833f93f06cd13. Project: Spanish1. License: CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
