How do you do present progressive?

Question

Mis amigos/ hablar el español

Answer 1

The present progressive form is made from combining the correct form of ''estar'' -to be, with the verb. The verb ending however will change to either -ando for -ar verbs, or -iendo for -er verbs. Ex: Juan está comiendo. Juan is eating. Estoy hablando. I am talking. Mis amigos están hablando en español. Hope this helps

I forgot to mention also, the the verb ending -iendo also works for verbs that end in -ir as well as verbs ending en -er. - JessieRichelle, Sep 8, 2011

You can edit your responses Jessie, the edit button is to the left of the "flag" button. - Fredbong, Sep 8, 2011

Thanks Fred (: I'm pretty new at this as well. - JessieRichelle, Sep 9, 2011

Answer 2

Hola abbs. ¡Bienvenidas a SpanishDict!

You may want to take a peek at the progressive tense reference article.

A present progressive construction is built with two verbs. The first verb you need is "to be" or in Spanish "estar."

In your example, you must conjugate estar to fit the subject. Your subject is "mis amigos." So the corresponding Spanish subject would be "ellos."

In the following example the subject is "I" or, in Spanish, "yo."

I can not believe what I am seeing!

¡(yo) No puedo creer lo que estoy viendo!

Estar is conjugated in this case as "estoy" because the subject is "yo."

The second verb you need is the verb that will be your "ing" verb.

To form the "ing" verb you must change the ending, usually classified as AR or ER/IR endings, to form a "gerund."

For AR verbs, such as hablar, tratar, etc, "ar" becomes "ando" forming "hablando" and "tratando."

For ER/IR verbs, such as creer, comer, vivir, sobrevivir, etc, you change the endings of "ER" or "IR" to "iendo." Which forms creyendo, comiendo, viviendo, and sobreviviendo.

Notice that creer is irregular. All IR/ER gerunds make the "y" sound when you are speaking, creer changes its construction so that according to Spanish pronunciation rules it will still sound the way it ought to sound.

So can you figure out how to form a gerund for your example? See if you can conjugate estar and hablar the way they need to appear. Remember, AR verbs remove the ar ending and add "ando" to form the gerund.

Mis amigos (ellos) [estar] [hablar] el español.