Learn how to use the progressive present tenses
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Anna: Hola soy Anna. |
| Eric: Eric here! Using the Spanish Present Progressive Tense. |
| Anna: In this lesson, you'll learn how to use the progressive present tense. |
| Eric: This conversation takes place at Paula's home in the morning. |
| Anna: And it’s between Paula and Daniel. |
| Eric: The speakers are friends, so they'll be speaking causally. |
| Anna:Let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Paula: ¿Qué estás comiendo? |
| Daniel: Estoy comiendo un yogurt. |
| Paula: ¡Que aproveche! |
| Daniel: Muchas gracias. ¿Y tú qué estás haciendo? |
| Paula : Estoy haciendo los deberes. |
| Eric: Now let's listen to the same conversation at a slow speed. |
| Paula: ¿Qué estás comiendo? |
| Daniel: Estoy comiendo un yogurt. |
| Paula: ¡Que aproveche! |
| Daniel: Muchas gracias. ¿Y tú qué estás haciendo? |
| Paula : Estoy haciendo los deberes. |
| Eric: Let's now listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Paula: ¿Qué estás comiendo? |
| Paula: What are you eating? |
| Daniel: Estoy comiendo un yogurt. |
| Daniel: I'm eating yogurt. |
| Paula: ¡Que aproveche! |
| Paula: Bon appétit! |
| Daniel: Muchas gracias. ¿Y tú qué estás haciendo? |
| Daniel: Thank you very much. And you, what are you doing? |
| Paula : Estoy haciendo los deberes. |
| Paula : I'm doing my homework. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Anna: If you're eating in Spain, someone will probably tell you ¡Que aproveche!, which is a Spanish phrase that means something like "Enjoy your meal!" |
| Eric: There’s no direct translation, however. |
| Anna: That’s right, because the verb aprovechar means "to take advantage," and no English phrase is related to the meaning of this expression, but it's kind of like, Bon appétit! |
| Eric: So, if you're in Spain and you see a friend or coworker eating, this sentence will be a very polite thing to say. And even if you don't know the other person well, it will be very kind if you say it. |
| Anna: But, remember, we only use it when the other person is eating—not drinking; also, don't use it when you're the only one who's going to eat. |
| Eric: Okay, now let's take a look at the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Anna: comer |
| Eric: to eat |
| Anna: comer [slowly] |
| Anna: comer |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: los |
| Eric: the |
| Anna: los |
| Anna: los |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: un, una |
| Eric: a, an |
| Anna: un, una [slowly] |
| Anna: un, una |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: estar |
| Eric: to be |
| Anna: estar [slowly] |
| Anna: estar |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: yogurt |
| Eric: yogurt |
| Anna: yogurt [slowly] |
| Anna: yogurt |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: que aproveche |
| Eric: enjoy your meal |
| Anna: que aproveche [slowly] |
| Anna: que aproveche |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Anna: deberes |
| Eric: homework |
| Anna: deberes [slowly] |
| Anna: deberes |
| Eric: And last.. |
| Anna: hacer |
| Eric: to make, to do |
| Anna: hacer [slowly] |
| Anna: hacer |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Eric: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Anna: The first word we're going to look at is estar. Estar is a Spanish verb that we can translate as... |
| Eric: "To be." |
| Anna: We can translate the verb "to be" as estar or ser, but we use these in different situations. |
| In this situation, we use the verb estar as an auxiliary verb to show a continuous action at the time. |
| Eric: Let’s hear an example. |
| Anna: Well, you could say something like Estoy comiendo, which means "I'm eating." Or Estamos leyendo, which translates to, "We're reading." |
| Eric: What's our next word? |
| Anna: The next word we'll look at is deberes which, in Spain, means "homework." In other Spanish-speaking countries, tarea is the more common term for "homework." |
| Eric: Could you give us an example please? |
| Anna: One example would be hacer los deberes, which translates as "to do the homework” or haciendo mis deberes, meaning “doing my homework.” You can also say things like, Tengo muchos deberes que hacer, which translates as "I have a lot of homework to do." |
| Eric: Okay. So what's our last word? |
| Anna: The last word we're going to look at is yogurt. This word is written exactly the same as the English "yogurt," but the pronunciation is a bit different. |
| Eric: Could you break it down for us? |
| Anna: Yo-gurt. |
| Eric: And one time fast? |
| Anna: Yogurt. |
| Eric: How about an example sentence? |
| Anna: For example, Yo quiero yogurt. which translates to, "I want yogurt." |
| Eric: Great, now let's take a look at the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the present continuous tense. |
| Anna: In the dialogue, we heard the phrase, Estoy comiendo un yogurt. |
| Eric: Which we translated as "I'm eating yogurt." In past lessons, we saw how to use the present simple, which is normally used with routinely or commonly done actions. |
| Anna: In this lesson, we'll see another present tense called the present continuous or present progressive tense. These are two names for the same tense. |
| Eric: First, we'll look at when to use the present continuous, and after that we'll see how to form it with some examples. |
| Anna: The present continuous tense, in Spanish called presente continuo, is used to talk about something that’s happening right now. |
| Eric: At this very moment. |
| Anna: To form the present continuous, we can use different motion verbs such as venir meaning "to come;" ir meaning "to go;" and andar meaning "to walk." But in this lesson, we'll just focus on the use of the verb estar to make the present continuous. |
| Eric: So, our structure is... |
| Anna: The subject, plus the present simple of the verb estar, plus the gerund form of a second verb. |
| Eric: Could you use that in an example sentence so we could hear it with a bit more context? |
| Anna: Certainly! You could say yo, which would be the subject, then estoy, which is the present simple tense of the verb estar, then you can say cantando, which is the gerund form of the verb cantar meaning “to sing.” So all together it would be, yo estoy cantando. |
| Eric: You might be thinking, "What’s the gerund form of the verb?" Well, it's easier than it looks because there’s only one gerund form for all tenses and all persons. |
| Anna: That's right. However, there’s a very minor change between the three main types of verbs, the -ar, -er, and -ir verbs. |
| Eric: So, we already know that we form Spanish regular verbs by a stem and a variable ending. The gerund is formed in the same way. |
| Anna: So, basically, the ending is changed to -ando for -ar verbs, or to -iendo for -ir and -er verbs. For example, hablar would become hablando; comer would become comiendo; and escribir would become escribiendo. |
| Eric: Could you give some of those in a sentence? |
| Anna: Sure! So, you could say, Ella está escribiendo una carta, which translates as, "She's writing a letter." Or in the dialogue, we heard the phrase ¿Qué estás comiendo?, which translates as, "What are you eating?" |
| HOMEWORK |
| Eric: It’s that simple! Now let’s hear the answer from the previous lesson’s homework. |
| Anna: The verb omitir conjugated in the present simple tense is yo omito, tú omites, usted omite, él/ella omite, nosotros omitimos, vosotros omitís, ustedes omiten, ellos/ellas omiten. And what about this week’s tarea? |
| Eric: This week’s homework will be to form the present continuous tense of these verbs in the first person singular. |
| Anna: Correr, limpiar, and vender. |
Outro |
| Eric: Well, that just about does it for this lesson. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time. |
| Anna: ¡Hasta luego! |
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