Use of Present Continuous for now
The present continuous tense has a number of uses. This section will describe one of the most common ones.
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Using the Present Continuous Tense
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for “Now” “at this moment”
One use for the present continuous tense is for actions that are happening now.
These actions began before now and will, probably, continue after now
although it is not usually important when it started or when it is going to finish.
These actions are temporary and are often for a short time.
They tell us about a moment in time
and that moment is around now.
Examples:
- He‘s sitting at his desk.
They‘re running a marathon.
The sun‘s shining.
You‘re driving down the highway.
I‘m listening to music and writing about English Grammar.
Besides now, other time words and phrases are common with this use of the present continuous tense. Here are some
of them:right now, just now, at the moment, for the time being, and at present:
- I’m writing right now.
They’re watching TV at the moment.
The sun’s shining just now.
Important additional comment
Please note that the examples above show short temporary actions. They tell us about the situation now:
“The sun’s shining just now.” Tells us at this moment the sun is shining, at the time of speaking it is not important when it started shining or if it normally shines
All the examples contain a form of BE and an –ing verb
We have more articles about the Present Continuous/ Present progressive: there is an introduction to the present Continuous which shows how to form the verb form , there is also one that shows how we use the present continuous for the future. Other things to consider are how the present continuous is used for temporary situations and which verbs are considered non continuous verbs although some of these have different meanings in the continuous and non continuous