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VIVAnews - We have talked about using the Present Simple to talk about facts and routine (habitual) activities. In contrast, the present continuous tense is used in other situations. In this lesson, we’ll focus on two situations.

FORMS:

POSITIVE:

I+am+Verb-ing: I am watching a dvd right now
He/She/It+is+Verb-ing: He is talking on the phone with his friend as we speak

You/They/We+are+Verb-ing: They are watching a dvd right now

NEGATIVE:

Subject + am/is/are+NOT+Verb-ing: They are not doing their homework

QUESTION: Am/Is/Are+Subject+Verb-ing?: Is your brother visiting his friends right now?

For these examples, we are doing these activities at the time of speaking. The adverbs we use to indicate this are ‘currently’, ‘presently’, ‘right now’, ‘as we speak’, and ‘at the moment’.

Another way we use the continuous form is to indicate a situation is temporary (is not permanent) or a change from the usual activities.