Present Simple and Present Continuous
Take a look at the following sentences taken from the text on Internet branding:
‘The Internet is the only mass-communications medium that allows interactivity’.
‘On the Internet a brand lives or dies in an interactive era’.
‘The number of websites is growing at the rate of fifty thousand a week’.
The verbs in these sentences are in the present.
I. Form
Present Simple
The Present Simple is formed with the bare infinitive form of the verb (without to)
e.g. ‘You make too little of the Net when you assume it will not affect your business at all’.
You speak French. We talk a lot every day.
- we add -s in the third person singular (after he/she/it/John etc.)
e.g. ‘It exploits a totally new attribute’.
She plays the piano.
- verbs ending in -s, -ss, -ch, -sh, -o, -x add -es
e.g. He watches TV in the morning. He misses her. He goes there.
- be, have, are irregular verbs
e.g. ‘The Internet is the Wild West’.
He has a nice house.
- we use do (does for the IIIrd person sg.) to form questions and negative sentences
e.g.
Do you ever listen to music?
Does she tell everyone that?
‘What attribute does the Internet bring…?’
They don’t understand.
He doesn’t feel very well.
‘The new medium does not replace the old’.
Present Continuous
The Present Continuous is formed with the present of the auxiliary verb be and the –ing form of
the verb
e.g. You are talking to them. She is swimming.
- we place the auxiliary before the subject to form questions
e.g. Is she driving to the city?
- we add not to the auxiliary to form negatives
e.g. They aren’t reading.
II. Use
Present Simple
We use Present Simple for:
- general statements and timeless truths
e.g. Two plus two makes four. Children like chocolate.
- habitual activities
e.g. He wakes up at 5 every morning.
- permanent situations
e.g. She lives in a large house.
- we often use frequency adverbs with Present Simple (they show how often an action takes
place): never, hardly ever, seldom, rarely, sometimes, occasionally, usually, normally, often,
frequently, always
See the position of frequency adverbs:
She always drinks coffee in the morning.
adverb verb
She is never late for school.
be adverb
Present Continuous
We use Present Continuous:
- for an activity in progress at the moment of speaking
e.g. ‘What is Ann doing?’
‘She is writing a letter’. (she is in the process of writing)
Sometimes the action is not happening exactly at the time of speaking
e.g. I am reading this great book about France these days.
(I have started reading it but I haven’t finished it).
- to talk about changes happening around now
e.g. It is getting warmer every day.
- for temporary activities
e.g. I am working in a different office this month.
Present Simple or Continuous?
- with verbs like: agree, suggest, promise, apologise, refuse etc. we use the Present Simple, not
the
Present Continuous (we do the activity when we say the sentence)
e.g. I promise I’ll help you.
(at the same time I say the sentence and I also do the action of promising)
- we use ‘always’ with Present Simple with the meaning ‘every time’
e.g. He always reads the newspaper in the morning.
- we use ‘always’ with Present Continuous with the meaning ‘too often’ when we want to
emphasize
that a situation is annoying
e.g. He is always coming late at work! I hate it!
- ‘forever’ and ‘constantly’ are also used with Present Continuous to express annoyance
e.g. She is constantly complaining about the weather!
Stative and active verbs
Some verbs have a stative meaning: they describe states (something staying the same), as
opposed to action verbs
e.g. Children like chocolate. (state verb)
They are eating. (action verb)
- we do not usually use state verbs in the progressive
e.g. ‘The future belongs to those who …’
‘We believe that history will rank…’
I know what to do (not: I am knowing).
Verbs with stative meanings:
1. verbs of thinking: know, think, believe, realize, understand, suppose, forget, imagine
2. verbs showing emotional state: love, like, hate, fear, prefer, mind
3. verbs showing possession: have, own, belong
4. sense verbs: feel, taste, hear, see, smell
5. other stative verbs: be, seem, appear, look, resemble, exist
- some stative verbs can be used in the progressive as action verbs, but their meaning changes
e.g.
I see a bird flying. (state verb) I am seeing John tonight. (action verb)
(‘I am meeting’)
We have several books on this subject. We are having lunch. (action verb)
(state verb) (‘We are eating’)
You look sick. You should see a doctor. She was looking at him, unable to smile.
(state verb) (action verb)
- some stative verbs can be used to express temporary feelings
e.g. I’m loving this music!
See also: He is usually very quiet, but today he is being very noisy. I wonder what happened.
(He is behaving this way now, it’s a temporary behaviour)
- sometimes with state verbs used either in the simple or in the continuous form there is little
difference in meaning
e.g. She feels happy/She is feeling happy.
- be + adj. has a stative meaning (am/is/are old/young/tall). Sometimes be + adj. can be used in
the progressive (e.g. am/is/are being + bad/polite/nice/serious etc.)
