PTE INTERMEDIATE 1 PROJECT

Good afternoon teacher and classmates, today I'm gonna talk about this tense “present
continuous”. Besides, I will be explaining to you in which situations you should use it.

First of all, we need to know how is its structure in positive and negative sentences:
SUBJECT+VERB TO BE+ VERB IN ING+ COMPLEMENT
(You always need to put the subject first, it can be; I, YOU, SHE, HE, IT, WE OR THEY, plus
the VERB BE; you know IS, AM OR ARE it depends on the pronoun we've chosen, plus the
VERB in ING and the complement) This is only in positive sentences.

Let's see some examples:

I am reading a book called “Freedom”
In this case, we've used the subject, which is “I” the verb be, which is “am”, the “verb in ING”
which is “reading” and of course the complement…you could also see more examples in
these situations:
She is writing an internet blog.
They are playing video games.
We are singing Christmas songs.
These sentences have the same structure as I already told you about.

On the other hand, when you wanna make a negative sentence with this tense, you just
need to use the structure that I've already told you and add “NOT” between the VERB BE
and the VERB in ING, so it'll be something like that:
( SUBJECT +VERB TO BE + NOT + VERB ING + COMPLEMENT)
- Subject, plus the verb to be, plus NOT, plus the verb in ING and then the
complement.
Here are some examples of it:
She is NOT working for that company.
It's the same structure as in positive sentences, but with this “NOT” between the verb be and
the verb in ing.
The same would happen with these sentences:
They are NOT wearing any kind of accessories.
He is NOT trying to stand out.

How to create questions using present continuous, let's see:

We have to use the same structure as I told you but changing the order of the verb be and
the subject, it would be something like this:

VERB TO BE + subject + Verb in ING + complement

Here are some examples:
Are you coming home tonight?
Is she writing a book?
You just need to change the order of the verb be and the subject…

Now that you already know how to make sentences with this tense, I'm gonna explain in
which situations it's necessary to use it:

There are 3 uses of this tense, here are the 3 ones:

To begin with, you can use this tense just to talk about actions that are happening NOW. For
example:
She's watching TV with her family, I hope she doesn't fall asleep.
This means that she's WATCHING tv NOW, she hasn't finished it yet and the action is still in
progress, like these sentences:
I am eating my breakfast
She's doing her homework
They are buying gifts for Christmas

Another use of this tense is when you wanna talk about present situations, it's common to
use adverbs, here are some examples:
She's crying a lot lately.
This means that she's been crying too much and we also have used “lately” which is an
adverb.

When you could also use this tense when you wanna talk about “future plans”, like this:
I'm traveling to Cajamarca next month.
This means that I'm gonna travel to Cajamarca next month. To make this sentence in future,
we have to use a “time clause” in this case “next month”. What I'm trying to say it's that if we
don't put the time clause, the sentence will not be in future, just in present.
Here are some examples:
I'm taking my exam tomorrow
She's getting her driver license in two weeks

I hope you guys understood this tense, thank you so much.