How do you form the present progressive in Spanish?
Conjugate estar in the present — estoy, estás, está, estamos, estáis, están — and add the gerund, which stays the same for every person: estoy hablando, ella está hablando, estamos hablando. Vos takes estás, like tú.
The gerund is the stem plus -ando for -ar verbs (hablando, estudiando) and -iendo for -er and -ir verbs (comiendo, escribiendo).
| Person | Present progressive |
|---|---|
| yo | estoy hablando |
| tú | estás comiendo |
| él, ella, usted | está escribiendo |
| nosotros | estamos hablando |
| vosotros | estáis comiendo |
| ellos, ustedes | están escribiendo |
Which gerunds are irregular?
When the stem ends in a vowel, -iendo becomes -yendo: leyendo, oyendo, cayendo, construyendo. Ir, with no stem to speak of, gives yendo.
A small group changes the stem's vowel: e to i in diciendo, pidiendo, sintiendo, viniendo, siguiendo and riendo; o to u in durmiendo and muriendo — and poder, an -er verb, gives pudiendo. Every other gerund is regular, the academies stress: nevando, lloviendo, previendo.
| Change | Gerunds |
|---|---|
| -yendo after a vowel | leer → leyendo, oír → oyendo, caer → cayendo, traer → trayendo, construir → construyendo |
| ir | yendo |
| e becomes i | decir → diciendo, pedir → pidiendo, sentir → sintiendo, venir → viniendo, seguir → siguiendo, reír → riendo |
| o becomes u | dormir → durmiendo, morir → muriendo, poder → pudiendo |
When do you use the present progressive?
It shows an action from the inside, under way and not yet finished: ¿qué estás haciendo? — estoy cocinando; todavía estoy escribiendo el informe. The plain present can often say the same — ¿qué haces? asks it too — and the academies list canto and estoy cantando as alternatives for something in progress (§23.5e).
It also covers a stretch around now, often with últimamente: últimamente estás fumando demasiado. With a verb like parecerse it shows a change happening gradually: se está pareciendo a su padre — more like him all the time.
With ser it describes behavior at the moment, not character: estás siendo injusto, you are being unfair. For what someone is — tall, from Mexico, a doctor — ser stays in the plain present: es alto (ser vs estar has the rest).
| Use | Example |
|---|---|
| In progress right now | ¿Qué estás haciendo? — Estoy cocinando. |
| Not finished yet | Todavía estoy escribiendo el informe. |
| Going on lately | Últimamente estás fumando demasiado. |
| Changing bit by bit | Este chico se está pareciendo a su padre. |
| How someone is behaving now | Estás siendo injusto con él. |
When does Spanish use the plain present instead?
A plan or a timetable goes in the plain present, or with ir a: salgo mañana, el tren sale a las ocho, voy a salir mañana. The progressive describes something already under way.
Something presented as done takes the plain present, not estar: te mando los libros que me pediste, le abonamos la cantidad en su cuenta. The academies point out te estoy mandando and le estamos abonando as copies of English (§28.12s).
A state that simply holds sits badly in the progressive — el letrero lo dice bien claro, not lo está diciendo, though a person can be saying something (el maestro lo está diciendo) — and a permanent one does not take it at all (§28.12m). And two gerund constructions are never chained: sigue trabajando, never está siguiendo trabajando (the DPD's gerundio, 6.1).
| English | Spanish |
|---|---|
| I'm leaving tomorrow. | Salgo mañana. · Voy a salir mañana. |
| The train is leaving at eight. | El tren sale a las ocho. |
| I'm sending you the books. | Te mando los libros. |
| We are crediting your account. | Le abonamos la cantidad en su cuenta. |
| She keeps on working. | Sigue trabajando. |
Where do the pronouns go?
A pronoun goes in one of two places, with no change of meaning: before estar or on the end of the gerund — lo estoy leyendo or estoy leyéndolo, me estoy duchando or estoy duchándome (Nueva gramática §16.12a).
On the end of the gerund it needs an accent, because the stress now falls three or more syllables from the end: leyéndolo, esperándote, diciéndomelo. Accent marks has the rule.
Why do English speakers get the present progressive wrong?
Because English needs -ing where Spanish does not: I'm leaving tomorrow is salgo mañana, and we're sending you the books is te mandamos los libros. The other slips are in the form — leiendo for leyendo, dormiendo for durmiendo, a pronoun said twice (te estoy esperándote) — and in a second gerund chained to the first.
Our mistake corpus does not count the progressive as a point of its own, so this page has no first-party rate — the quiz is the measure. Its nearest point, the present tense, was wrong 22% of the time across 47 learners.
What comes after the present progressive?
The present tense is the form Spanish reaches for first — hablo, salgo, conozco. The progressive moves into the past with the imperfect: estaba leyendo. Hace vs desde hace covers how long something has been going on — llevo dos años viviendo aquí, vivo aquí desde hace dos años — and reflexive verbs put their pronoun in the same two places: me estoy duchando. The free Spanish level test places you on the A1–C2 scale in five minutes.