Mezcla entre'los tiempos progresivos y perfectos
Hola! Soy Jordan, y soy nuevo aquí.
Tengo otra pregunta sobre gramática. ¿Cómo se escribiría una oración como "I have been watching..."? Estaba pensando que se combinaría los tiempos progresivos y perfectos como: "He estado viendo..."
Gracias a todos!
3 Answers
Hello Jordan
Welcome ot the SpanishDict forum 
You asked:
JordanTaylor07 Hola! Soy Jordan, y soy nuevo aquí.Tengo otra pregunta sobre gramática. ¿Cómo se escribiría una oración como "I have been watching..."? Estaba pensando que se combinaría los tiempos progresivos y perfectos como: "He estado viendo..."Gracias a todos!
Well, you might find this incredible, but I was asking my native Spanish teacher who lives in Spain about this very subject:: I have been doing something using the (idiomatic use of the) verbs llevar + gerund + time period vs hacer + verb + time period, in my private class today in Skype!
She explained this to me: If this is an action that has happened at some time in the past and has already stopped /already been completed you use the prefecto compuesto de indicativo with the present participle like in your example: He estado mirando los pájaros en mi jardín = I have been watching / looking at the birds in my garden. (my example)
Other examples include;
Hemos estado viviendo en España cinco años = We have been living in Spain for five years
He aprendiendo español siete años = i have been learning Spanish for seven years
This action has happened at some time in the past but has now been completed ie: it is no longer happening!
However, if you want to indicate that the action is continuing up to the present day you would use either the verbal onstruction using llevar that is commonly used in Spain
ex: tres horas esperándote = I have been waiting three hours for you/I have been waiting three hours for you
Llevo dos horas leyendo este artículo y aún no no entiendo = I have been reading this article for two hours and I still don't understand it
ex: Llevo tres horas viendo la TV = I have been watching television for three hours.
(ie: I haven't stopped watching it yet! / I am still watching it)
or, the verbal construction using hacer :
ex: Hace dos horas que leo este artículo y aün no entiendo = I have been reading this article for two hours and I still don't understand it
Almost all of the examples included here have been given by my native teacher.and copied from my Skype class today. 
Daniela has explained what you do/have to do much more concisely than I have done in my post and as she is a native teacher you should give special attention to her post!
I hope this helps
Corrijan mi español is es necesario, por favor
:
En realidad no estás combinando los tiempos progresivos y perfectos aquí, sino combinando el tiempo presente perfecto con el "participio presente" que en muchas formas funciona como en inglés. Este participio presente se puede emplear con cualquier tiempo del verbo estar. Lo que has escrito está bien.
Hey, guys, I'm not disagreeing with anybody, except the OP. He thought that the statement under question "he estado viendo..." "I have been seeing---" was combining the perfect and progressive tenses. I explained that that was not the case.
He was merely using the "present perfect" with a present participle which is similar to the English "I have been seeing" word for word! I guess if you want to name it you could call it the "present perfect progressive"
This tense is hardly heard or used in countries that don't have a lot of English around. In fact it's not even taught in the textbooks. They use for example: instead of "He estado viviendo en España (por) 10 años" Most Spanish speakers prefer, "Hace diez años que vivo en España." o "Llevo diez años viviendo en España" Or even "Vivo en España hace diez años.
Yes, now to quickly address the present perfect and the past perfect, (pluscoamperfecto), both are used in cases where the English would parallel the Spanish.
He comido tacos hoy. I have eaten tacos today. Lin los ha comido hoy también. Lin has also eaten them today.
"Lin me dijo que nunca los había comido antes, porque es de China." "Lin told me that he had never eaten them before, because he is from China"
All the semantic BS that goes like, "The present perfect tense is used to describe action that began in the past which may or may not be complete but has an effect in the present". is barely understandable Huh???? I don't bug my students with that I just tell them to use the present perfect and the past perfect just as they do in English.
There is only one main difference. In Spain there is a tendency to replace the preterit tense (action completed in the past) with the present perfect. But that's a Spain thing, which I have a tendency to use too much.
This has happened with French to the extent that their preterit "passé simple" has totally been replaced (except in literature) with the present perfect which they call the "passé composé"
To repeat I am not in disagreement with either Feliz or Jubilado---heck I don't even understand half of what they said. I'm sure they're correct, but I look at grammar from my own point of view which is usually backed up by my textbooks. This time the text, "¿Cómo se dice?" far surpasses "Panorma" in its discussion of the compound tenses.
In fact I wrote my statement without even looking at the other discussions, because I thought at the time that they were a little too long and complicated. And with the OP discussing some things on the periphery that could be better discussed in in another thread, I'm going to stay out unless personally addressed with a question that sounds a little less argumentative.
Some of the going back and forth in the comments make my eyes spin. Wow!
OK! ¡Ya estuvo! Rant over. Nos vemos. Chau.
