How do we know when to use present simple tense or present continuous tense?
ApoorvaC
April 27, 2022
How do we know when to use present simple tense or present continuous tense?
ChrisM108
April 27, 2022
This should help as a start: https://onlineitalianclub.com/tenses-in-italian-and-english-also-buona-pasqua/. Also https://onlineitalianclub.com/free-italian-exercises-and-resources/online-italian-course-pre-intermediate-level-a2/staregerundio/
Not easy to master, some of this grammar. I'm spending more time than usual going over Ci and Ne…!
Chris
ApoorvaC
April 28, 2022
Yes it's definitely a spiral of confusions!
Thank you for the help.
Apoorva
caterina-rocket-italian-tutor
May 9, 2022
Hi Apoorva
Thanks for your question!
For instance:
“Che stai facendo?" - What are you doing?
“Sto leggendo un libro.” - I'm reading a book (right now)
In some cases, you can use the present simple in place of the present continuous. In fact, you could have said “Leggo un libro” (literally: I read a book) to indicate an action taking place in this moment - that's very common and considered to be correct.
For all things that are taking place at the present time but not in this exact minute, I'd tend to use the present continuous.
Hope this helps :)