Simple present and present progressive. In this lesson, we are going to look at the differences between these two. Lucas is from Columbia. He speaks Spanish, but he is speaking English now because he is helping his classmate. She speaks Russian, but she is speaking English with Lucas. Some of these verbs are in the simple present and some are in the present progressive. Let's look. Simple present verbs are, is, speaks, and speaks again. Do you see the present progressive? Is speaking, is helping, is speaking. Remember present progressive needs the be verb and a verb with I-N-G. Let's review when to use these forms. Simple present is for facts and habits. Sara goes to the gym every Tuesday. John plays basketball. Jan studies computer coding. The friends often surf together. Bees make honey. Earth revolves around the sun. All of these are examples of the simple present. Present progressive is for now. You are learning about grammar now, right this minute. They are walking to school. She is waiting for a flight. He is living in Arizona this year. Remember, now can be a long time. We use this word, this, to show that it is now and we need the present progressive. I'm going to call this word a signal word. Let's look at the signal words. First, this is a signal, this is a traffic signal and it tells you when to stop and when to go. Signal words tell us when to use the simple present and when to use the present progressive. They signal what time we're talking about. Let's make a chart. On one side we'll put simple present and the other side present progressive. On the simple present side, we use frequency words like always, sometimes, often, and never, to show the simple present. We also use the word every and we put it with another time like, every hour, everyday, every week, every month, every year. This tells us that something happens again and again and that's our use for simple present. On the present progressive side, of course, we have the word now, but we can also use the word today to mean now. We use that word, this, this afternoon, this week, this month. This shows us that it is happening now. I'm going to tell you about Anita. Anita is 14 years old. She plays tennis and golf very well. She's playing chess right now. She is a student. Her favorite color is red, and she often wears a red sweater, but right now she's wearing a black shirt. Let's think about this information about Anita. I told you she plays tennis and golf, this is the simple present. I also told you she's playing chess, this is the present progressive, this is happening right now. I said she often wears a red sweater, but I told you she is wearing a black shirt now. Look at the signal words over here, often shows us that it's simple present, and now shows us it is present progressive. You try. Eva is a student from Spain. These sentences tell us more about Eva but the verbs in the blanks are in their simple form, that means we need to change them to fit in the sentences. We need to decide simple present, or present progressive. How do we know? Well, sometimes we can look at the picture and sometimes the other words in the sentences help us. Here, there are signal words. Let's look; this, every, today, and now. These signal words tell us how we should change the verbs. Are you ready for the answers? Eva is a student from Spain. She is living in the US this year. This year tells me it should be present progressive because it's happening now. She studies every afternoon in the library. Every tells me it happens this afternoon, tomorrow afternoon, the next afternoon. That means it needs to be in the simple present. Eva is shopping today. Today tells me present progressive now. She is looking for a blue jacket now. Well, now is happening now. One more time. Look at the picture. This is Isaac. These sentences tell us about him. What forms of the verbs go in the blanks, simple present or present progressive? Remember, look for signal words and you can look at the picture too. Are you ready for answers? This is Isaac. He works in a law office. There's no signal word here, but I can see the picture he's not in an office right now, he's outside. He is cooking on the grill outside today. I see this in the picture, but also I see this signal word today that tells me present progressive. He is talking to his friend Dan now. Now is a signal word for present progressive. He likes to cook for his friends. Well, likes is one of those words that I can't put in the present progressive. It has to be in the simple present. In this lesson, we reviewed the different uses for the simple present and the present progressive, and you learned about signal words to help you see these differences.
