NIVERSIDADE ABERTA ISCED

Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas

CURSO DE LICENCIATURA EM CIENCIA POLÍTICA E RELAÇÕES

INTERNACIONAIS

Present continuous and past simple

Arcenio Artur Munguambe ( Present continuous and past simple

Xai – Xai, March de 2023
 NIVERSIDADE ABERTA ISCED

Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas

CURSO DE LICENCIATURA EM CIENCIA POLÍTICA E RELAÇÕES INTERNACIONAIS

Present continuous and past simple

Fieldwork to be submitted to the

Coordination of the Degree in Public
Administration Course at UNISCED
Tutor: ________________

Xai – Xai, March de 2023

Índice
1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1

2. Development ............................................................................................................................ 2

present continuous and past simple ................................................................................................. 2

2.1. present continuous ............................................................................................................ 2

2.1.1. When to use the present continuous ..................................................................................2

2.2. Past simple ........................................................................................................................ 4

2.2.1. When to use the simple past ...............................................................................................5

2.2.2. Simple past: affirmative form ............................................................................................5

3. Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 7

Bibliographic references .................................................................................................................. 8

 1. Introduction

The present work appears in the discipline: English.

In this work, present continuous and past simple will be addressed.

The present continuous is used to describe actions that are happening right now. However, one
should also think about actions that have a temporary duration, with a beginning and an end, as
they may continue for a week or months, restricting the idea of something that caused only the now
when using the present continuous .

The simple past is used to express the idea of a finished past in the present moment of speech, for
example.

1.1. Goals
1.1.1. general
 Study present continuous and simple past;
1.1.2. specific
 Define the present continuous and the simple past;
 Discuss the difference between present continuous and past simple.

1.2.Methodology

From the point of view of technical procedures, research is Bibliographic When elaborated from
already published material, consisting mainly of: books, magazines, publications in periodicals and
scientific articles, newspapers, bulletins, monographs, dissertations, theses, cartographic material,
internet, with the aim of putting the researcher in direct contact with all the material already written
on the research subject. (Prodanov, et al., 2013).

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 2. Development
present continuous and past simple

2.1. present continuous

The Present Continuous or Present Progressive, is a tense used to indicate actions that are in
progress in the present; at the time of speech.

It is used to talk about temporary situations, ongoing actions that are taking place.

As sentences with Present Continuous refer to situations that occur at the time of speech, it is
common to observe the use of adverbs of time in sentences.

Some commonly used adverbs of time are now, at the moment, and at present.

Examples:

• She is talking to her mom now. ;

• Are they studying at the moment? ;

• She is American, but she's living in Canada at present.

2.1.1. When to use the present continuous

The present continuous is used when we want to talk about some action or situation that is
happening at the same time of speech, that is, what is happening now. The continuity of the action
can also have a longer period, as the action needs to have a beginning and an end, whether it will
end today or two weeks from now makes no difference compared to the present simple, whose
actions are routine and habitual.

Thus, the present continuous is used for temporary actions as well. Thus, the duration of an action
in the present continuous is subjective, because it can be momentary, short or long|1|. The future
notion is added to the uses of the present continuous when we talk about plans that we have
already made and organized, for example, trips that already have a scheduled date, the people
who will participate in the trip, the means of transport that will make the journey, etc.

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A good way to identify the present continuous is to look for tense expressions that are recurrent,
among which the following stand out: now, at the moment, at present, just, already and still.
Formation of the Present Continuous.

2.1.2. Main rules of the present continuous

The Present Continuous consists of a main verb and an auxiliary verb.

In phrasal construction, this tense follows the following formation pattern:

Subject + verb to be + verb with -ing + complement

Secondly, attention should be paid to the spelling of verbs ending in -ing. See the cases where
changes are necessary:

• One-syllable verbs ending in consonant + vowel + consonant — double the last consonant and
add -ing

Stop – stopping

Run – running

Get – getting

dig – digging

 Except with verbs ending in -w or -x:

Fix – fixing

mix – mixing

Snow – snowing

 Verbs with two syllables if the last one is stressed — the consonant must also be doubled
(CVC):

Prefer – preferring

begin – beginning

 Verbs ending in -e — remove the ending and add -ing:

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 Make-making

Dance – dancing

live-living

write – writing

 Verbs ending in -ie — replace the ending with y + -ing:

Lie (to lie) – lying

Die (morrer) – dying

Finally, we cannot use the present continuous with all verbs, especially state verbs, because these
do not specifically indicate an action, but mental states, attitudes, emotions, existence, among
others.

We highlight in the following list some of the most common state verbs:

Agree Hear Need Hate Like Suppose

Believe Know Realise Have Love Want

2.2.Past simple

The Simple Past , also called Past Simple, is one of the tenses.

We use the Simple Past when we want to talk about a finished action in a time before now. It
doesn't matter when the action happened, it can be from a long time ago or in the recent past. /
We use the “Simple Past” when we want to talk about an action that ended in a time before now.
It doesn't matter when the action took place – it could have been a long time ago or it could have
been in the recent past.

Examples:

My grandfather died in 1996.

We did all the homework yesterday.

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She lived in London in 2012.

2.2.1. When to use the simple past

The questions is marked by the adverb yesterday and the structural element of the past tense: the
auxiliary verb did.

Consequently, every time you want to express something that happened yesterday , a year ago ,
two weeks ago, last month , you must resort to the simple past.

2.2.2. Simple past: affirmative form

When formulating a sentence in the simple past affirmative, two aspects must be kept in mind:
regular verbs and irregular verbs. There is no rule for knowing whether a verb fits into the first or
second category. Only frequent use enables us to learn when the verb is regular or irregular.

There are rules for conjugating regular verbs. In general, -ed should be added to the base form of
the verb in the present tense without the particle to.

For example:

Talk – talked

Miss – missed

 Also, when the verb is regular, there are some spelling rules:

If they end in –e, just add –d.

Smile – smile

die - died

live – lived

 If they end in a consonant +y, drop the -y and add –ied.

study – studied

marry - married

try – tried
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 In one/two syllable verbs (stressed last syllable) that end in a vowel + consonant, just double
the last consonant and add –ed,

Travel – traveled

stop – stopped

Prefer – preferred

 But for most regular verbs, just add –ed.

play – played

look – looked

Work – worked

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3. Conclusion

The Present Continuous, also called the Present Progressive, describes an action that is taking
place in the present, at the moment you are speaking.

We use the present continuous tense when we seek to express actions and events that are occurring
at the same moment of speech. Therefore, it is common to use the present continuous to describe
actions that are happening now.

This tense has the following structure:

Auxiliary verb to be in the Simple Present (Present Simple) + gerund (-ing) of the main verb.

simple past is used to express habits or actions that happened in the past and will no longer
happen.

The simple past is used to express the idea of a finished past in the present moment of speech, for
example. This means to say that he has no relationship with either the present or the future. It is
understood, therefore, that the simple past refers to actions, situations, finished events.

The difference between the Present Continuous and the simple past, Present Continuous is
describes an action that is taking place in the present, at the moment in which it is spoken, While
simple past is used to express the idea of a finished past in the present moment of speech. That is
to say, this means that he has no relationship with either the present or the future.

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Bibliographic references
Muniz. C. Simple Past. 2022. Available at << Simple Past - passado simples em inglês - Toda
Matéria (todamateria.com.br)>> accessed on March 20, 2023.