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The past progressive or past continuous construction combines progressive aspect with past tense, and is formed using the past tense of be (was or were) with the present participle of the main verb. It indicates an action that was ongoing at the past time being considered: At three o'clock yesterday, I was working in the garden.
The present continuous is formed by the present tense form of be and the present participle (-ing form) of the verb. [3] [4] For example, you would write the verb work in the present continuous form by adding the -ing suffix to the verb and placing a present tense form of be (am, are, is) in front of it: [3] I am working. You are working. She ...
Thus present progressive (present continuous) constructions take forms like am writing, is writing, are writing, while the past progressive (past continuous, also called imperfect) forms are was writing, were writing. There is a progressive infinitive (to) be writing and a progressive subjunctive be writing.
Like the present progressive, the Italian past progressive is extremely regular. Forms of stare are those common to -are verbs in the imperfect (stare/stavo, parlare/parlavo, etc.). There is no readily available means in Italian for expressing the distinction between English "We were reading" and "We have been reading."
Jamaican Creole uses a (from English "are") or de for the present progressive and a combination of the past time marker (did, behn, ehn or wehn) and the progressive marker (a or de) for the past progressive (e.g. did a or wehn de). Haitian Creole uses the progressive marker ap. Some Atlantic Creoles use one marker for both the habitual and ...
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The progressive present is a grammatical tense that is used only if an action is actually in progress at the time. For example, in Spanish , "estoy leyendo" means "I am reading (right now)." It is formed by using the present indicative of estar plus the present participle of the verb.
A perfect tense (abbreviated PERF or PRF) is a grammatical form used to describe a past event with present relevance, or a present state resulting from a past situation. For example, "I have put it on the table" implies both that I put the object on the table and that it is still there; "I have been to France" conveys that this is a part of my ...