Questions tagged [continuous-aspect]
Continuous aspect is an imperfective aspect that expresses an ongoing, but not habitual, occurrence of the state or event expressed by the verb.
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May I change the past perfect continuous to the past continuous and the past perfect to the past simple with the adverb "before"?
There are a lot of lessons about the PPC on the Internet and in textbooks, however, I've been stymied because an American friend of mine insists I can easily get away with changing the PPC to the PC ...
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Why is the use of present continuous with a time duration ungrammatical and the perfect aspect needs to be included? [duplicate]
A: I am waiting for 2 hours.
B: I have been waiting for 2 hours.
As I understand it, A would be understood as an intention, whereas B would report about what had been happening. Why is it like this, ...
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Simple past use in continous action [duplicate]
Reading Albert Camus's The Stranger and I found the following passage:
"As we ate, he started telling me his story"
I started wondering if there were other examples of simple past used with ...
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Use of present simple tense in sports commentaries
Given that the present continuous is used for something happening now, e.g. "I am eating", and the present simple is used for general facts, e,g. "Lions eat meat", why does sports ...
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Past perfect continuous
I'm confused about the past perfect continuous sentence. One YouTuber who is an English teacher is explaining that there is a slight difference between the following two sentences, which makes me ...
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'Will be -ing' or 'Is -ing'?
When teaching Future Continuous vs Future Perfect the other day, a student stumped me with an observation of the following question taken from the 4th Edition of English File by Oxford:
Sonia is ...
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the entire film/book
If I say:
"I read the book." or "I watched the film."
Does it mean that I read the entire book or that I watched the entire film?
If it does, how should I say to emphasise that I ...
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We didn't know what to do, so we did nothing/ were doing nothing [closed]
I came across this sentence in one of my workbooks:
We were in a difficult position. We didn't know what to do, so we did nothing / were doing nothing.
The key suggests that this should make use of ...
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Past Continuous in reported speech
Let's imagine someone has told me:
Last month while we were traveling in Cyprus, my mother was packing her bags for her first ever foreign trip.
I was wondering whether I could paraphrase it, and ...
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"You'll be hoping for a bit more from the new player, I suppose." Why the future continuous?
“You'll be hoping for a bit more from the new player, I suppose.”
Why the future continuous?
Wouldn't one rather use the future simple instead? If not: why not?
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What verb construction would you use?
Imagine you go down to the station at noon to meet your friend Mike there. You sit there and wait and wait for him to show up. Two hours later your
friend finally arrives and says to you:
Sorry I'm ...
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Mention the first immediate action in an '-ing' clause in front of the main clause
Page 585 of the Collins English Usage reads
To indicate that someone did one thing immediately after
another, you can mention the first thing they did in an '-ing' clause
in front of the main clause.
...
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For + -ing verb (purpose)
Page 200 of the Collins English Usage reads
You do not use 'for' with an '-ing' form when you saying why someone
does something. You do not say, for example, 'He went to the city for
finding work'.
...
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"they had renovated" vs "had been renovating"
How can I understand the sentence 1b?
1 a When I last went to Moscow, they had renovated St Basil's Cathedral.
b When I last went to Moscow, they had been renovating St Basil's Cathedral
The ...
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"I was no longer working for X" vs. "I no longer worked for X"
I'm a student learning English and recently helped a friend of mine write an important email in English. The text I gave him contained the following part:
I am sorry for not replying to your email, ...
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past-continuous vs present-perfect-continuous [closed]
I have watched a few videos on this theme, but still don't understand when I would use one and cannot use another. Example from one of BBC English videos:
"I have been cooking soup for 20 minutes ...
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Past perfect continuous and use of since
I came across the following sentence with an instruction to rewrite it in past perfect continuous using the given time expression in brackets:
Govind was working in this factory as a watchman. (since ...
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How to ask if someone is doing the same thing as before without using "still" for negative connotations?
"So, X, are you still living in Y?"
"So, A, are you still working at B?"
For a conversation opener or continuer, is there an alternative way to enquire, interest, about someone ...
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Differentiate between Present Simple vs Present Progressive (Continuous)
Is the following sentence in present simple or continuous tense?
I am in class.
How do you change it to the other tense?
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Matter of course use of future continuous
I am unable to fully grasp the matter of course use future continuous.
The explanation says;
we use future continuous to talk about something which will happen, if everything happens as we expect
An ...
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Continuous infiniti
I can’t remember seeing the same man as devoted to anything as he is to serving you. When to use to +verb ing form ?
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Chekhov and the omission of "be" verbs with progressive tenses in compound sentences
The following is an excerpt from a translation of Chekhov's story "The Student" published in the Norton Critical Editions. Given the prestige of this publication, one would assume what's printed to be,...
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Can you help with the difference in these past perfect tenses?
Example 1: 'Edison invented the light bulb. He had been working on it for years'.
Example 2: 'Edison invented the light bulb. It had taken him years'.
In example 1, the past perfect continuous makes ...
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You keep me hanging on - phrasal verb(s)?
What is actually the phasal verb in a sentence:
You keep me hanging on
"Keep on" or "hang on"? What do we have here? Double phrasal verb? I am trying to figure this out for a while today... This is ...
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How to use / not use 'Always'?
Recently I was informed that 'Always' can be used with continuous verbs but only if it is used on situations with bad implications, such as teenagers are always causing trouble. But what about these ...
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"I am tired and doing my homework." Is it grammatically correct?
Is the sentence in the title absolutely grammatically correct? I recently had an argument with a fellow student, and he said that the sentence is incorrect. I do not think he is right, because I saw ...
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While + Past Simple + Past Simple vs. While + Past Continues + Past Simple
We can use these two tenses together as below, for example:
While she was walking on a sunny beach, Amy slowly read an
extremely long book about justice.
I was wondering under what conditions we ...
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Why can we use present simple for "I feel fine"?
“I feel fine this morning”, why? He feels fine all morning, it means that this action takes a long time, so we must use present continuous.
I feel fine this morning, but I was very tired last ...
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Why do conditional sentences with "would have had to" have an extra "had" in them?
Well, I was reading about Type Three conditionals. In the main clause we use if + past perfect (had), then in the second clause we use either the "perfect conditional" or the "perfect ...
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How to explain the tenses in these sentences?
So my Japanese student is having trouble understanding why the following tenses are used and I’m not sure how to explain it.
My line manager wants the meeting arranged immediately.
Why does that ...
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Present continuous and present simple
can I use present continuous and present simple in one sentence, like in my writings below?
1."There is no bird singing without a reason so don't tell me you cry for no cause."
2."The moments I don'...
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Mixing simple present and a present participle in the same phrase?
I'm writing an explanation of my duties in a job that I currently have, and I came up with the bullet:
Organize large groups of over 200 people, directing them to activities and allocating seating in ...
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Is it "since 1973, the festival has been running ... " or "since 1973, the festival has been run ..." [closed]
I had this in a test. I wrote the first one, "has been running" and got it wrong and the teacher wrote the second one, "has been run". I want to understand who's correct and why.
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"I’m afraid that they will call me when I will be doing my homework" Is that correct?
dear stackexchangers, need your help.
As you sure know there is a rule about using Present Simple instead of Future Simple after words "when", "before", "if", etc. But what about my sentence? Can we ...
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Using present continuous for tendencies
Can one use present continuous to describe tendencies, such as:
Oh this word? It's not being actively used these days anymore.
This sounds good to me, but I can't find a grammar rule to support ...
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Which one is correct? "I am suffering from fever since yesterday" or "I am suffering from fever from yesterday"?
I am not good in English literature.
From daily use of English language, it seems to me that the second from in:
1 I am suffering from fever from yesterday
is the correct word. But, my friend, a ...
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"is starting on ..." Why is it Present?
I have exercise to create sentences in Present Continuous but in one of them is. " The sales is starting on Monday". My question is about time used here, in my opinion this will happens only in future ...
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Sense verbs (see and hear) used in the progressive form (specific contexts) [duplicate]
I have a question about sense verbs used in the progressive form, namely "hearing" and "seeing" in the contexts like the ones presented in the attached images (the underscored fragments). Is there any ...
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Present participle
Is possible to say "bored" in present participle?
How I understand it is past participle.
I want to say "I am seeing, how she is feeling bored at the lesson now." and I want to use present continuous....
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Non progressive verbs. Was seeing, was looking good [duplicate]
Non progressive verbs are not used in continuous, right?
But what about, for example, sentences like:
"Gazing absently over the rooftops, it was a few seconds before Harry realised what he was ...
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present perfect continuous vs. present continuous [duplicate]
how can we differenciate present perfect continuous .
we use it for the actions which started in the past and still continuing but we start doing the exam in present continuous tense.
I am working on ...
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perfect continuous conditional tense doubt
"I just wanted for you to come back home when you would have been ready."
I wonder if the sentence above is correct. I have some doubts about the tense after "when".
Thanks for the help!
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Nothing's getting done today - is it present or future?
Is the sentence "Nothing's getting done today" present continuous?
Why is the verb get ending in "-ing"?
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Is 'Does' correct here?
Some people say. "I does what I want to" is this in any way relative to "I always do what I want to" or it's totally wrong to have it so
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Is "I am running" or "I run" grammatical to say while running?
Please check this video.
I understood for performative verbs, if we are doing something and, at the same time, we are saying it, we don't need to use the present continuous tense. I am not sure I have ...
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Present Perfect Continuous Tense - Passive Voice - Question Forms [duplicate]
Please tell me how to use the positive question form of passive voice of the tense- Present perfect Continuous Tense?
The Positive Answer form could be as "I have been being taught". (Here, I am the ...
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What’s the difference between “she is worked” and “she has worked”? [closed]
Sometimes she’s means she has but sometimes it means she is. How can I find the difference between these two identical sentences so that I can understand which of the two possible contractions was ...
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The elevator going up/down [duplicate]
I was very surprised when I first heard "this elevator going up". But then I heard it in a bunch of other places, so it is not a mistake. So, why is it not "the elevator is going up/down"?
Thank you!
...
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Why "missing", but not "needing" or "wanting"?
The following sentence is OK:
The table is missing a leg.
But the next two sentences sound a bit off (to my native ear, at least):
The campaign is needing support.
I am wanting an apple.
The verbs ...
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Is "my horse had been stolen" or "my horse was stolen" better in this sentence?
I'm Mexican and I have had English class since kindergarden, now I'm in eighth grade in middle school.
Some days ago, we had the fourth term English exam, and I was surprised because the teacher had ...
