Learn CONTINUOUS TENSES in English the EASY way!

TRANSCRIPT

Quack, quack. Hi, my name's Ronnie, and I'm going to go over some grammar with you. Do you hate grammar as much as I do? Oh, it's so confusing. I really, really, really love teaching, but I really hate grammar. But I want to make it easy for you, so I found a new trick. Yes! Check this out. Tricks by Ronnie. Ronnie's turning tricks. [Laughs] We're going to do a little review to help you always get this continuous or progressive tense malarkey down pat. There is one method or one trick that's really cool. Ready?

Meow. The answer is verb+ing. So, I want you to remember one thing from this lesson. In English, as soon as you have something that's continuous or progressive, which is exactly the same... Sometimes your textbook will say "continuous", some textbooks or some people will say "progressive". It's exactly the same. But what you have to know and the cool trick is that as soon as you have continuous or progressive, all this means is somewhere in the magic of the sentence there's going to be verb+ing. Cool. So, present continuous, past continuous, future continuous, somewhere in these sentences, you're going to have a verb+ing. The more you study grammar, you get into past perfect continuous. Oh. Present perfect continuous. Don't worry about those right now, but just remember that whatever you have in progressive or continuous is going to have verbing somewhere in the sentence.

So let's just go through the easy parts. We're going to start, as we should, with the present tense. So present continuous or present progressive is the subject, plus, in this sentence, because it's present tense, we're going to have the present tense of the verb "to be". So: "is", "am", "are" makes this present, "is", "am", "are". Negative: "isn't", "am not", or "aren't". Plus your continuous verbing. So, present continuous is subject plus "is", "am", "are", and your magic verbing. Cool. As an example... [Makes noises] I am watching you. Or you are watching me, aren't you? Yeah, you're watching me, but I'm watching you. "I am watching" you. "She is learning.", "They are listening." So, this is our example of "am", "is", "are", plus verbing. Negative example: "He isn't sleeping." Are you sleeping? Wake up. Come on. He isn't sleeping. You're not sleeping. Good. When we use this grammar, we have subject plus the verb "to be", plus our magic verbing. We use present continuous for actions that are only happening right now at the moment. You cannot use this at any other point. You cannot say: "Yesterday, I am eating." Oh, Ronnie confused. Yesterday, yesterday, yesterday, yesterday. Ah, haha: "was eating" is good because this is past continuous.

So this is where, and probably the first and only time in your life, grammar's going to make sense. If present continuous or present progressive is the verb "to be" plus verbing, the only thing that we're going to change to make it past is we're going to change the verb "to be" into the past tense, which is "was" or "were". So to change it from present continuous to past continuous, you're just changing "to be" verb. And then, of course, you're going to add the verbing, because this is our magic. For example: "He was walking..." He was walking down the street. Usually, when we use past continuous or past progressive, we use it for telling a story. So, if you want to tell your friend about something really crazy that happened yesterday: "We were talking, and all of a sudden, a giant panda bear came out and gave us a kiss." Yeah, good story, buddy. "I wasn't talking to him..." This is an example of the negative. So, you can use "was", "wasn't", "were", or "weren't". Remember: "He was", "We were", "I wasn't". Be careful with your subject and your verb agreement. This is really important in all of the grammar.

[MitochondrialSteve]

I'm have been learning multiple languages at the moment Icelandic, Japanese, Malayalam and Telugu every time I come to grammar problems I always come to you to clarify grammatical terms. You are so talented at teaching! Thank you

[ASBPicturesOfficial]

my favourite crazy teacher.. she is teaching us english.. I love you teacher 😍

[ghanimaabderrazzak]

You can not teach the way Ronnie does until you are highly confident and got a total knowledge and control of what you teach. Then you can make it easy and funny. Thank you Ronnie, we love you and we love the way you present things.

[MariaMartinez-dstv]

I am a English linguistics major and I have all these papers, charts, and just shit. These videos made more sense to me because its organized better. I'M SO THANKFUL FOR THIS CHANNEL!

[mrigo]

Your explanation is so easy to understand and it makes me understand that the
'verb+ing' use in every sentence like 'continuous' or 'progressive' and the difference between past, present, and future is only the 'to be' . Thank you Ronnie 😊

[smithchristina]

Each of teachers in engVid was great. I always watched their videos and I learned a lot how to create a sentence etc. I will be so happy if all of this program was available in DVD so I could watched this anywhere without a net. Thank you so much to all of you and please keep continuing to post videos so I could learned more.. More power and god bless... Again, thanks to everyone... 😊

[srremm]

Thanks Ronnie, I've found particularly helpful the subtitles in English, not to miss any word... I really appreciate it!! You're the coolest teacher ever! :)

[AlessandroTrovato]

Thank you Ronnie! I appreciate very much your method!

[saramateomatias]

I love when you talk with us.. it's like being in the same room. you rock!

[charlotteforssell]

Just what I needed right now for my students. Thanks Ronnie! :)

[AlexandreSilvaply]

I would to say that you're the best teacher here in Youtube. With you I can improve more my vocabulary. Thanks! I am from Brazil.

[seftiazzarani]

Thank you, Ronnie. I understand now. So the easy method for Continuous/Progressive is always using Verb-ing in the sentence. And also, i know the differences for using "to be" in every tense (Past, Present, and Future). Yeay! I got it. 👍

[gekkojensen]

omg this is really helpfull!!god bless you my teacher.

[sundariaurel]

Thank You So Much Ronnie for your tricks. It makes me easier to understand about the Continuous or Progressive tenses. The point of that tenses always use "VERB+ing" but "to be" in each tenses are differences, depend of tenses.

[vivian]

Miss, I really love your channel! It really helps to clear things that I am confused about!
Your passion for teaching is inspiring as well! :D

[kui]

the best teacher ever :D 😙😝 Ur tips is helpful

[Alboe]

Thanks Ronnie, i just came in Vancouver 3 months ago, and 2 weeks later i will go to Toronto for travel, I really hope i can get chance to see you, then i will talk to you! I really like your videos!

[leahhendricks]

Ty for this, I've been struggling with continuous tense in class

[D-sc]

you have a nice teaching way ! tricks ; fun ... thank you Ronnie im always watching your videos

[genxman]

Just saw this today. I'm teaching in Melbourne Australia. Ronnie (and family) is/are always welcome here! Great video :-)