Gerundio & verbs ar, ir, er

Question

Tengo un pregunta:

When you use esta with a verb do you always put ndo on it?

Por ejemplo:

el perro tira del hombre. el perro está tirando del hombre.

So in the AR verbs at least, do you just take the form you would use - in this case, for it pulls, tira and just add ndo? Is it that simple?

If so, is there a rule for the gerundio in IR and ER verbs ? ( I think this might be in the lessons but I have forgotton)

thanks,

Rachel

Answer 1

When you use esta with a verb do you always put ndo on it?

Por ejemplo:

el perro tira del hombre. el perro está tirando del hombre.

Short answer:

No, the gerund is used to form the progressive tense; Yes, there is a rule for constructing the gerund.

Long Answer:

It depends on what you were trying to say and how you were trying to say it. The past participle of a verb can also be used as an adjective when combined with the verb estar.

For example: using the past participle as an adjective you could say

Estoy cansado which uses the past participle of the verb cansar as an adjective to say I am (feeling) tired.

In the progressive tense you could say

Estoy cansando which uses the gerund of the verb cansar to form the progressive tense to say I am tiring (right now)

I just had a discussion about this last night and qfreed provided some good links regarding the use of adjectives. I will provide the link for you:

Predicate Adjectives

Also, there are some good articles on the use of the verb estar as an auxiliary verb (used with the gerund of another verb) in the reference section. This site also has a short ten minute video lesson the present progressive (gerund construction)

Progressive Tense

Video Lesson Present Progressive

Answer 2

I was taught to reduce the verb to its stem form and then do the conjugation. For example: tirar, the stem is tir-. to convert it to the gerund form, add -ando, ending up with tirando. For regular -er or -ir verbs you reduce the verb to its stem and add -iendo. For example: tener, the stem is ten-, add -iendo and you have teniendo. asistir, the stem is asist- add -iendo and you have asistiendo. If it is an -er verb that has 2 e's in it, like leer, instead of adding -iendo you add -yendo, ending up with leyendo.

Sounds like a good general explanation of the gerund to me - Izanoni1, AGO 30, 2009

It does not neccesarily have to have two e's to change to "yendo", as in "caer" to "cayendo". I believe that "iendo" is changed to "yendo" in ER/IR verbs whose stem ends in a vowel, in order to prevent a triphthong. I might be wrong about that though. - Nick-Cortina, AGO 30, 2009

good point - katrinks, AGO 30, 2009

Answer 3

If it is an -er verb that has 2 e's in it, like leer, instead of adding -iendo you add -yendo, ending up with leyendo.

That's not entirely accurate. The rule for verbs (both regular and irregular):

When an unstressed i appears between vowels, or at the beginning of a word and before a vowel, it always changes to y, which is how you'd pronounce it naturally anyway.

Verb: caer. Stem: ca-. Present participle ending: -iendo. So "caiendo" changes to cayendo.

Verb: ir. Stem: nothing. Present participle ending: iendo. So "iendo" changes to "yendo",

Verb: concluir. Stem: conclu-. Present participle ending: -iendo. So "concluiendo" changes to concluyendo.

The stem of the verb "errar", which is irregular, changes to ierr- sometimes, so the present, instead of "-ierro" is "yerro".