THE PRESENT PROGRESSIVE TENSE

The present progressive tense is a compound verb tense that is sometimes also known as the present continuous tense. It is used to describe things that are happening right now; and RIGHT NOW is a very important distinction to make. But before we explain this point in more detail, let’s first look at how we form this tense.

As mentioned, the present progressive tense is a compound tense where we combine the verb estar in the present tense with a gerund of another verb. Here is are some examples:

Spanish	Meaning
“Estoy hablando”	I am speaking
“Estás escribiendo”	You are writing
“Está durmiendo”	He/she/it is sleeping
“Estamos comiendo”	We are eating
“Estáis leyendo”	You (all) are reading
“Están limpiando”	They are cleaning

Whilst we're not specifically going to discuss other progressive tenses today, it is possible to use different forms of estar combined with a gerund to express other periods in time or moods. For instance: “estaría hablando” (I would be speaking) which is an example of the conditional progressive tense.

Present tense vs present progressive tense
Often when newcomers to Spanish are made aware of the present progressive tense, they tend to use it all the time in place of the simple form present tense. This is mostly because once you’ve learnt how to combine estar with a gerund, this becomes much easier than trying to learn the simple form present tense of a new verb. In addition to this, we may wish to try out this newly learnt compound verb tense as often as possible, certainly as it tends to be one of the first compound tenses we learn.

But this becomes dangerous, as it is not grammatically correct to use the present progressive tense unless you are referring to something that is happening right now. Let’s see an example:

Spanish	Meaning	Tense
“Hablo”	I speak / I'm speaking	Simple present
“Estoy hablando”	I'm speaking	Present progressive

Notice that the simple present tense can translate to mean both “I speak” and “I'm speaking”. These might seem like completely different things in English, but in Spanish the simple present tense can and often does mean both these things providing it’s not happening right now.

Now let’s see an example of how we should use these two tenses in a real sentence:

Spanish	Meaning	Tense
“Hablo un poco de español todos los días”	I'm speaking a little Spanish each day	Simple present
“Estoy hablando español (ahora mismo)”	I'm speaking Spanish (right now)	Present progressive

Clearly, both of these examples are describing things happening in the present, but only one is happening at this very moment.

For the avoidance of doubt: You do not explicitly need to say “right now”, but if the thing you are describing is happening at this very moment or that you’re in the middle of, then you should favour the present progressive tense over the simple form present tense.

Conversely, if the thing that you are describing isn’t happening now or you’re not in the middle of it, then you probably shouldn’t be using present progressive tense. Think about how you might say “I'm going to Madrid this week” for instance.

Conclusion | En conclusión
The present progressive tense is a relatively easy compound tense to learn. Mostly because as beginners, we tend to learn the simple present tense forms of the verb estar early on. Which makes it easy to form once we learn a few gerunds.

However, we should always try to remember to take a moment to consider if the thing that we are describing really is happening right now or not. Picking the correct tense from a possible two, can take a bit of practice.

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