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I am having a row with my friends about the following sentence:

She is currently studying English and she does so every week.

Is this sentence ok? The row is about the use of present simple vs present continuous in the first part of the sentence.

I think that “She currently studies English…” is also correct.

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  • To what does "does so" refer? To "studying English" or to something else that might be apparent from some context that we don't have? Does "studying English" describe the state of pursuing a course of study over weeks, e.g., that she is enrolled in an English class, or does it mean that she is actively at work on her English skills at the present moment, e.g., reading her course material? "Currently studying English" tends to mean the former.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 27 at 16:47

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"She is currently studying English and she does so every week."

That sentence is unusual. Strictly speaking it is correct but it may not mean what your friends think it means. It means "She is studying at this moment, and she studies English every week (for a certain amount of time)."

It depends what you want to say but I think that you mean:

"She studies English every week."

That would imply that she sets aside a certain period of time each week for her studies.

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    Both 'She is currently studying English' and 'She studies English every week' are fine, but I find it inappropriate (I'd dock a mark at A-Level) to switch to 'does so' as in the original, with the substitution introducing a switch from present continuous to present simple. Lack of parallelism.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 26 at 22:48
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    I don't think "currently" necessarily means "at this moment". You can use it to refer to the current semester or the current stage in their education. But it would be weird to combine either of these with a periodic action.
    – Barmar
    Commented Jul 27 at 13:27

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