Even English Present Tenses Still Confuse Me Sometimes

 Trying not to mix up English Present tenses.

As I mentioned in my previous article, my very first post on this blog, I said I would review English tenses, one piece at a time. So it makes sense to start with the "simplest" of them: the present tenses. But even English present tenses still confuse me sometimes.

 

 

 

When and how exactly do we use the present continuous compared to the present tense?

Back in school, when we started learning English verbs, we usually began by conjugating them in different tenses. And of course, we started with the present tense, especially the simple present.

We learned the structure of the tense, and then when to use it. The simple present was the easiest to understand. Like our teacher said, we use it for regular actions or general truths. So we all thought, "Okay, that's easy!" But then came the explanation of the present continuous and that's when the confusion started.

I think people like me, who live in French-speaking countries, know that there's no real equivalent of the present continuous in French. That's probably why this tense is a bit hard to understand.

For example, when we say "I work" in English, it doesn't always mean "I'm working right now." Most of the time, it just means something more general, like "I have a job."

So now, let's keep using the verb "to work". If I ask a teacher, "What is the difference between I work at a school and I'm working at a school this week?" I'm almost sure the answer would be something like: "The first sentence tells you where you work in general, and the second one means it's just for now, maybe it's temporary or something happening right now."

It's this little difference that sometimes makes me hesitate when I speak. I stop and ask myself: "Is it something regular or something happening now?"

Sometimes I even mix them up, especially when I speak fast or feel nervous. But I guess that's normal when learning a language. On top of all that, we also use the present continuous to express trends and future plans, but we'll talk about that another time.