El Presente Progresivo Brief Lesson Spanish Worksheet Template printable pdf download

El Presente Progresivo

A Brief Lesson

What exactly does the phrase “present progressive” mean to you? Well, the present tells us it’s

something that is happening right now, and progressive means that it is ongoing, right? So the present

progressive tense lets us talk about what is happening right now.

Example:

We are talking

They are sleeping

I am listening

You notice that in each example there is a form of “to be” and then the verb ends in –ing. In Spanish,

this pattern is the same. First we use a form of to be and then we have a special ending. Since we are doing the

action right now and not for the rest of our lives, we’re going to always use estar. Instead of –ing, we take the

ar, er, or ir off of the verb and add -ando for ar verbs and iendo for er and ir verbs.

To be verbing - estar + verb –ando

(ar verbs)

- iendo (er/ir verbs)

Ejemplos:

-ar verbs

-er verbs

-ir Verbs

Estoy hablando – I am talking

Estamos comiendo – we are eating

Estan saliendo – they are living

I know what you are thinking: “I bet there are irregulars.” I won’t lie to you, there are some irregulars, but the

nice thing is that there are not very many. You do not boot these verbs, or put go on them, almost all of the verbs that you

know are going to behave normally. This means you can say a lot without worrying about the verb. The one irregular I

will warn you about right now is the verb ir. When you want to say we are going somewhere, use yendo.

¿Qué estás haciendo? – What are you doing?

Estoy pensando en un plan – I’m thinking of a plan

Estamos jugando – we’re playing

Estoy yendo al cine – I’m going to the movies

When to use it

You need to be careful when using the present progressive, because in English we use it a LOT more

than they do in Spanish. ONLY use this when talking about something going on right now: I’m writing a paper.

Also, be careful not to confuse the present progressive with the “to be going to…” that you already know.

I’m talking

- estoy hablando

I’m going to talk – voy a hablar

– yo hablo mucho

I talk a lot

Práctica –

Estar – to ____

1. I am studying ________________________ 5. I am writing _____________________

2. We are swimming _____________________ 6. We are running __________________

3. You (inf) are drawing __________________ 7. You are dusting __________________

4. They are buying _______________________ 8. They are leaving _________________

El Presente Progresivo Brief Lesson Spanish Worksheet Template

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