So, corn. We all use corn. In the U.S., we grow corn for corn on the cob, mainly, but sometimes we add the kernels to soup, make popcorn, or dehydrate the pretty, colorful ones to decorate our houses around Thanksgiving. Not weird at all, right?

In Mexico and other parts of Latin America, they also use corn for corn on the cob, but they also grind it into masa to make stuff like tortillas, tamales, pupusas, sopes, etc., and they even use the husks for stuff. Same crop, different uses. Bam. Beautiful.

That's kind of what we do with verbs, too. For example, both Spanish and English have the progressive tense:

  1. I am eating all your cookies.
  2. Me estoy comiendo todas tus galletas.

But both languages use the present participle for other things.

Since we like you so much, we've put together some of the different ways that the present progressive verb forms in English and Spanish are used. Hopefully, this will help you on your language-learning endeavors. You're welcome.

Gerunds

In English, a gerund is a tense-less verb that's used as a noun. The present participle and the gerund both have the same verb form: -ing. These are the verb forms used in the present progressive.W...

Participles

The Present ParticipleIn English Turns out, you can use the present participle in English as something other than a noun: it can also be a type of modifier. Check out the following example:Lee keep...