The Use of The Present Continuous Tense

They Is He She It not watching Television

2. The Use of The Present Continuous Tense

According to Mark Foley and Diane Hall, there are several usages of present continuous tense as stated below: 23 a. To describes an action in progress at the moment of speaking or around the time of speaking. The action is likely to continue after the time of speaking but is likely to stop at some point, i.e. it is temporary. Example: - I’ll be with you in a minute. I’m just finishing something in the kitchen. Common adverbs with this form are now, just , still and at the moment Example: We’re studying the writings of Gunter Grass on the German course now. b. We also use the present continuous tense to describe things which are changing. Example: British summers are getting hotter and winters are getting wetter. c. To talk about repeated events or actions, usually if they happen within a temporary period. Example: I’m feeding the neighbour’s cat this week while she’s in the hospital. We can use the present continuous tense with and adverb such as always, forever, or continually to talk about repeated actions that happen very often, perhaps too often as far as the speaker is concerned. Example: The baby’s always making cute little gurgling noise. The neighbours are forever slamming doors and shouting during the night. d. To describes the action is in progress throughout the time of speaking. 23 Mark Foley Diane Hall, Longman Advanced Learner’s Grammar: A self-study reference practice book with answers, England:Pearson Education Limited, 2004, p. 47 Example: They’re now entering the back straight and El Garrouj is starting to pull away. e. We can use the present continuous with the present simple to give more immediacy to a past narrative. We use the continuous for actions which form a background, i.e. they started before the actions within the narrative. Example : There’s an old man with thick glasses who’s serving the hot drinks, so I go up to her and ask…..She started serving before the action of the narrative. f. To express arrangement in the future. Example : Were eating in a restaurant tonight. Weve already booked the table. In addition, Ronald Carter said that the present can be used to soften a negative comment with verbs of speech say, suggest, propose, argue, claim, and so on. Example: - We need more time. - What I’m saying is we need more time. 24

3. The Rules of Spelling the Present Continuous Tense