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I'm a teacher of English and I try to dive a bit deeper into the language I teach. I have a good command of grammar, but I sometimes hear things like:

(all these examples are from vlogs by natives speakers from the UK and Canada)

  1. You can still make progress if you're going to the gym three times a week

  2. It's really important to make sure that you're just having the right plan and you are sticking to it

  3. ... when you're constantly messaging someone

  4. ... because when I'm visiting my mom, usually she wants to talk to me all the time

In these examples it seems to me that the action described in the present continuous happens usually or always or over a long period of time. Why is the present continuous used in these examples? Are they all correct/natural?

Am I right that native speakers tend to use continuous tenses in spoken English?

Thank you!

Araucaria - Not here any more.
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Lisablog
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    I'm going to the gym three times a week [implied at this time, this year etc.]. Generally, I go to the gym twice a week. These would all the same in AmE too. The temporal frame of the ing form is not necessarily explicit. It can be implied. – Lambie Sep 27 '23 at 17:20
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    "You're constantly messaging someone" - you are in the habit of doing so – Kate Bunting Sep 27 '23 at 17:29
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    @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. It wasn't meant to be rude or something. I do the same things, though, I just want to be able to give a legit answer to my students, not just: "well, this is what they do". By asking this question I kinda want to understand what native speakers feel when someone else says "I'm always waking up at 7", cause grammatically it obviously should be "I wake up", and if I make this mistake during an exam, I'll be downgraded (can you say that, btw?) – Lisablog Sep 27 '23 at 17:38
  • @Lambie ok. this one makes sense, what about the other ones, when it's obviously present simple?

    because when I'm visiting my mom usually she wants to talk to me all the time

     – Lisablog Sep 27 '23 at 17:39
  • @KateBunting that's the thing, though, the rule goes that you should use "you constantly message someone". Unless it's an annoying habit, then it can be "you're messaging" – Lisablog Sep 27 '23 at 17:41
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    There is no 'rule'. It's perfectly idiomatic to say "You are always doing X" to mean "You frequently do X". – Kate Bunting Sep 27 '23 at 17:46
  • "When I'm visiting my mom" is fine. It can be full of unstated things like: in the summer, over the winter, by the lakeside. I repeat: the temporal frame (when something occurs) is not always explicit. Also, it emphasizes the action as opposed to the fact. – Lambie Sep 27 '23 at 17:50
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    The "you're just having the right plan" is not idiomatic for this BrE speaker (it might be for Indian English speakers, fond of the present continuous). I would say "you have the right plan." – Weather Vane Sep 27 '23 at 18:11
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    @WeatherVane as funny as it is, this sentence was said by a British woman, here's the vlog (not trying to be mean or something, it's just interesting how native speakers use their own language) link (19:08) – Lisablog Sep 27 '23 at 18:25
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    In speech, people say all kinds of things. I have no idea why she said it like that. Don't learn English from vlogs :) – Weather Vane Sep 27 '23 at 18:28
  • @WeatherVane haha, thank you, I see. Would you notice a mistake like this in a conversation? – Lisablog Sep 27 '23 at 18:42
  • What I noticed is that she listens to Fleetwood Mac, because the rest of the content is... uh.. fluff and I would not have go to 19 minutes. But seriously, I don't know, because you already pointed it out. – Weather Vane Sep 27 '23 at 18:48
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    @Lisablog: You need to ditch the idea that if native Anglophonres don't say what you were taught, they're definitely making mistakes. Native speakers do sometimes make mistakes, but often if you see hear / read what you think is wrong, it's because you've been erroneously taught that a *tendency* is a *rule*. Most of your "present continuous when it should be present simple" examples are perfectly natural to the natives. The only one I don't like is the "having the right plan" one (possibly Indian English?). – FumbleFingers Sep 27 '23 at 18:51
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    @WeatherVane I also noticed that more and more native speakers use "want" in the continuous form: I've been wanting to ... . Does it sound weird to you or you won't even notice something like this? – Lisablog Sep 27 '23 at 18:51
  • When people talk I don't pay attention to their grammar – more to what they are trying to say (especially because speech is stream-of-thought and is peppered with umm, likes, mistakes, corrections and ers) although I form an impression of them from their speech. In writing however, it is more immediately apparent whether they can use English grammatically. – Weather Vane Sep 27 '23 at 18:55
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    @FumbleFingers I sense some negativity towards my message, I hope I'm just bad at sensing things :) So, if you look philosophically at things, then yes, and I agree that the examples in my question sound totally natural, I just wanted to hear that they sound natural to ALL native speakers, which obviously is not the case, according to some comments here. And sometimes a mistake IS a mistake, like in "do a mistake", it sounds weird even to me, although I'm not a native speaker. And I'm ok with it, I'm just trying to figure out if native speakers notice the mistakes in oral communication. – Lisablog Sep 27 '23 at 18:59
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    @Lisablog "want to understand what native speakers feel when someone else says..." isn't a question about English. It could be asked for any nationality / language. An English teacher may have a different perspective, but if you go around making value judgments about the way people speak, you'll alienate them PDQ. What sounds natural to native speakers of of any language, is the way they speak. There isn't "one correct version". In some localities my English will be deemed incorrect because it isn't like they speak. None of us are undergoing an English examination... or are we? – Weather Vane Sep 27 '23 at 19:21
  • @WeatherVane don't really see the point of your last comment, I just recently saw a video by an American girl, she said that she would never notice if someone said "if I will", but she would notice if someone answered "me too" instead of "me neither", it was just interesting to find out what you think about the examples I pointed in my message. But you don't have to teach me a lesson on how I should react to mistakes. You can either answer my question, or just leave it – Lisablog Sep 27 '23 at 19:55
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. Thank you, I'm good. There's someone who gave me a detailed answer without being mean – Lisablog Sep 27 '23 at 19:58
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    Hello! This is a *lovely question, really useful for native speakers who teach English and for learners. It illustrates beautifully that there are no hard and fast rules where English grammar is concerned but only guidelines. So, never stop questioning or asking, there is always something new to learn and for you to share with your students. P.S I don't know what Araucaria said in the comments, perhaps there was a misunderstanding; he's usually super nice and respectful to everyone. Check out his answers, they're detailed and supported with references not only opinions*. – Mari-Lou A Sep 28 '23 at 04:22
  • Making this a comment, as I don't have specifics to back me up. But I understand that some languages use the simple present where English uses present progressive. Thus a speaker may incorrectly assume that all uses of simple present in their own language map to present progressive in English. Or they may just not quite understand the when each one is appropriate. – trlkly Sep 29 '23 at 23:20
  • @FumbleFingers: I agree with you that all except that one seem to be real native English speech. But in some places a large fraction of the population do confuse "there" / " their" / "they're" in written text, and a small but vocal group of people insist that such variation is not a mistake simply because it's what they use. So it's not enough for a usage to be prevalent; it also has to be justified to not arise via a mistake! – user21820 Sep 30 '23 at 08:46
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    @user21820: Truth can be stranger than fiction. I've never heard of anyone attempting to defend incorrect orthography for "there" / " their" / "they're" (how dumb would you have to be to think you could win that argument? :) But I suppose if we go back and look at how the leading /n/ from *naranja* migrated leftward into the article, giving us *an orange, for example (more recently, a whole nother ball game) - if enough people say 2+2=5, maybe eventually it does!* – FumbleFingers Sep 30 '23 at 10:13
  • @FumbleFingers: I too didn't think it was possible, until I met people that refused to admit that the incorrect spelling were actually errors, just so that they could insist that not a single feature of Indian English was actually wrong English. Oh well... – user21820 Sep 30 '23 at 11:16
  • @user21820: Well, "Indian English" is a bit of a catch-all term. There are hardly any native Anglophones in India (they'll be outnumbered thousands to one by people using it as a "lingua franca"). And there's huge variation in the nature of IE geographically, and according to the native language of the IE speakers, and due to other factors. So it's a bit meaningless to talk about anything being "correct" in IE! – FumbleFingers Sep 30 '23 at 13:13
  • @FumbleFingers: Well tell that to those people who think that "I gave an exam" is a correct way of saying "I took an exam" in Indian English haha, instead of admitting that it is simply due to faulty translation.. XD – user21820 Sep 30 '23 at 13:22
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    @FumbleFingers *nother* has been an English word since around the 13th C. It is now obsolete in British and US Englishes apart from in the idiom "whole nother", but survives freely in some other varieties of English. But as you say if enough people say "2+2=5" ... it can become orthodox history ;-) – Araucaria - Not here any more. Sep 30 '23 at 23:20

4 Answers4

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The only one that sounds unidiomatic to me is "you're just having the right plan". That sounds more like how a speaker of Indian English would use the present continuous.

But we would say "We're having chicken for dinner".

Native speakers use the present continuous for a number of reasons, but among them, when the subject concerns a regimen like exercise or a diet, which occurs over a period of time, the present continuous emphasizes the ongoing nature of the thing:

you're going to the gym on a regular basis

you're sticking to the diet and not punctuating it with binges

With respect to sending messages on your phone, someone who thinks you're doing it too much probably isn't concerned with the number of messages you've sent but with the time you've spent messaging and doing nothing else, and the present continuous can reinforce the opinion that it is an incessant activity on your part; whenever they look over, you're looking at the screen and your thumbs look like they are practicing for the Thumb-War Olympics.

Why are you spending so much time messaging?

TimR on some device
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    I think misuse (or overuse) of the present continuous can also be typical of people who speak German as their native language (reminds me of some interviews of Arnold Schwarzenegger). – Hollis Williams Sep 28 '23 at 15:54
  • I would agree. I think the problem is pedagogical. People for whom English is a second language are taught rules when to use the continuous, and students misunderstand or misapply the rules. – TimR on some device Sep 28 '23 at 16:01
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    I think there's also a connotation that the present simple is for attributes of something without a clear boundary of when they started and stopped, while the present continuous denotes deliberate action. "Why do you spend so much time texting?" sounds like a harsh accusation about one's character. While "why are you spending so much time texting?" is softer, because it connotes something more like "why are you spending so much time texting lately?", so it's more of a question about their recent activity. That's my native AmE perspective, at least. – shadowtalker Sep 28 '23 at 17:33
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    @shadowtalker The simple present (Why do you spend...) suggests a regular or habitual thing and the continuous (Why are you spending...) suggests a continual or even unrelenting thing, but not necessarily a regular or habitual thing: What's going on at work today, that you are spending so much time texting? I rarely see you texting. Maybe you hear in the simple present version a simmering resentment that is finally expressing itself? – TimR on some device Sep 28 '23 at 18:34
  • @TimR yes, I think that's a better explanation of what I was trying to describe. – shadowtalker Sep 28 '23 at 19:05
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    Present continuous can theoretically reinforce the opinion that it is an incessant activity, but "why are you spending so much time messaging" would typically just be the natural phrasing to refer to someone messaging right now. (Although "texting" is much more commonly used compared to "messaging", unless you're referring to a specific platform, e.g. "I'll message them on Facebook".) – NotThatGuy Sep 29 '23 at 11:48
  • @NotThatGuy The present continuous in "Why are you spending so much time doing {something}" could refer to "lately" or to "right now", whatever that might mean: "just as we're getting ready to leave" or "today of all days". The Now is somewhat amorphous. But whatever the time-span the speaker has in mind when using the present continuous, the speaker's view is not that the thing occurred on one instance within that time-frame but that it is either happening often or going on much of the time; "incessant* would be the extreme example. – TimR on some device Sep 29 '23 at 13:07
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As the Original Poster expected some of these are indeed mistakes. For example:

  1. It's really important to make sure that you're just having the right plan.

We don't use the present continuous with the verb have unless it is being used to describe an action: I'm having a party tomorrow or I'm having a great time, for example.

The present continuous

The present continuous is normally used when some action (or state) is in progress at a particular point in time, or period of time.

In the most simple cases, this is when the action is taking place now. Of course, now might mean right this second:

  • Help, I'm drowning!

Or it might mean this year, this month, this week etc:

  • I'm studying German.

This is probably the best explanation for Original Poster's example (1) and the "you are sticking to it" part of (2).

  1. You can still make progress if you're going to the gym three times a week
  2. It's really important to make sure that you're just having the right plan and you are sticking to it

However, the time involved is not always now, it can be something that takes place at the same time as another action that is mentioned:

  • While Ed's doing the washing up, I watch TV .

Here Ed's washing up activity is taking place at the same time as my watching TV activity. This is the reason for the use of the present continuous in (4):

  1. ... when I'm visiting my mom, usually she wants to talk to me all the time.

The Original Poster's example (3) is a bit trickier to deal with in one way, and much easier in others. This is because it's impossible to establish exactly why the present continuous is being used, but there are two or three reasons that could easily explain it.

First, however, let's look at the phrase constantly messaging someone. This is an interesting phrase because, as the OP clearly knows, we tend to use the simple rather than the continuous for things that happen always/ usually/ constantly. However, people can do things constantly for a short specific period of time. Constantly does not mean "for ever", but "without stopping". So it might be that you went on a date with someone and they were constantly texting their friends. This would mean just that they were texting without stopping for the period of the date. It doesn't mean that this has always and will always happen, of course.

It turns out that there are at least three reasons why the present continuous might have been used in (3), especially because we do not know what the rest of the sentence was or the context in which it was said.

  1. ... when you're constantly messaging someone

First, it might be that it's used because the time being considered is now. Second, it might be being used because X happens "when you're constantly messaging someone". In other words it's maybe used to indicate that two actions are taking place simultaneously. And there's a third possibility that we haven't really talked about yet.

There's a very frequent use of the present continuous with the adverb always:

  1. My toddler's always picking her nose and wiping the bogeys on the table.

Now the Original Poster would indeed be wondering why on earth we are using the present continuous, which is reserved largely for things happening now, when this kind of sentence says pretty much exactly that this happens all the time. It doesn't really fit with the general theories that we read about in grammar books and so forth. It's normally presented as an exception.

However! There is, I believe a very good reason why this is basically the same kind of use of the present continuous as used in (4). In other words it is used to show that one thing is happening at the same time as another. The theory is not yet published.

Some always-sentences would sound very odd if they used the present continuous:

  1. The corpse of King Boll is always decaying in the ground.
  2. Biden is always reading books in his garden.

Example (6) is odd if the meaning is meant to be the same as The corpse of King Boll decays in the ground or The corpse of King Boll is decaying in the ground. This is because we tend to use [am/is/are always x-ing] for punctive acts. That is to say actions which can takes place more than once or can take place many times.

Example (7) is a bit odd if said, for example, by me, Araucaria. The reason for this is that, as you might rightly suppose, I have never met Biden. We tend to use the is always X-ing construction when we have personally experienced or witnessed this thing happening a lot. Example (7) implies something like:

  • Whenever I see him, Biden is always reading books in his garden.

In other words, the construction lends the weight of your (or sometimes someone else's) personal testimony that this thing happens a lot. The reason for the present continuous is to imply that this always happens at the same time that you personally encounter it. That's the theory anyhow. And this could be the reason for the present continuous in (4), where the adverb constantly has a similar meaning to always. It might be paraphrased as:

  • given that you are always messaging someone (whenever I see you).

One may wonder why I have talked a lot about things happening at the same time, or things happening now, but I haven't discussed temporariness. Well, the reason is that I believe that temporariness is a very good reason to consider something as happening now, as opposed to always or usually. However, this doesn't work the other way around. Just because something happens usually or always doesn't mean it isn't happening now! What is important is the way the speaker is thinking about the situation.

Imagine if someone falls off a building. A passer-by rushes up to them and puts their ear to the person's chest. What are we going to shout to the passerby?:

  1. Do they breathe?
  2. Are they breathing?

The answer, of course is (8), not (7). It is not that we think their breathing is temporary, but because we are wondering if they are breathing right now.

And, come to think of it, you're breathing right now too! And the earth is spinning on its axis. And the moon is orbiting the Earth. And ...

Araucaria - Not here any more.
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    I agree the King Boll sentence sounds a little odd, but the same construction sounds totally natural in other contexts. For example, "The ceremonial candle is always burning in the window" seems perfectly fine despite being a continuous action that doesn't occur more than once. I maybe think "decay" strains the use of "always", as there was a time when King Boll wasn't a corpse, and there will be a time when his corpse isn't decaying anymore. – Nuclear Hoagie Sep 28 '23 at 13:05
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    @NuclearHoagie Yes, I think that's right. It's not quite the same kind of usage, I don't think, as She's always messaging me, or He's always making fun of me. It's more like The earth is forever turning, or * where the always and forever are quite literal. But I'm aware that the action is not always repetitive, hence the tend to ;)There's two other problems with the King Boll, I think., namely that decaying is such a slow process and also that it's not witnessed or experienced by anyone. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Sep 28 '23 at 13:25
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    @Nuc I think the difference is that decaying has an implied timeframe; it can only happen once, and will only last for a time. In the ceremonial candle example, it's a general "ceremonial candle," not one specific, individual candle. "This (specific, individual) candle is always burning" sounds odd to me, because it makes it sound like it's something that will never end, and candles normally burn out. Conversely, "this lightbulb is always on" sounds okay to me, because lightbulbs can last an indeterminate length of time (there are some that have lasted a hundred years or more). – Aos Sidhe Sep 29 '23 at 13:57
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    Nice answer. It's worth pointing out that the use of "always" or "constantly" with the present progressive is often used to express irritation. For example, by an aide who disapproves of the president's reading habits: Biden is always reading books in his garden when he should be attending to affairs of state. This explanation would also account for the nose-picking example... – Shoe Sep 30 '23 at 15:20
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    ...Quirk in the CGEL (p199 footnote) states: "In combination with always, continually or forever, the progressive loses its semantic component of 'temporariness'. {Bill is continually/always/forever working late at the office.} The progressive in such cases often imparts a subjective feeling of disapproval to the action described. Thus the speaker...seems to suggest that working late in the office is an irritating or deplorable habit." – Shoe Sep 30 '23 at 15:21
  • @Shoe Yes, that’s the common EFL description too. Notice the personal aspect of the disapproval. However, it seems to actually be used very often for appreciation and positive habits too, and in fact, anything interesting: ‘Oh, he’s lovely! He’s always buying me flowers or whisking me off for the weekend’ etc. Or to a doctor: ‘Well, he’s always hiccuping and clutching his sides’ and so forth. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Sep 30 '23 at 16:58
  • @Shoe But the disapproval may be useful for teaching purposes, I think. I’d like to see what a search of the ICE GB corpus yielded (not sure how one would go about doing that - and of course it would be skewed somewhat by Quirk having basically bugged the English department at UCL to get the corpus!) – Araucaria - Not here any more. Sep 30 '23 at 17:12
  • Yes, I'd be interested in seeing some research into this. "He's always buying me flowers" is fine, but "You're always buying me flowers" sounds odd. Maybe the irritation interpretation is more common when the verb is in the second person: e.g. "You're always leaving the toilet seat up" or "You're forever forgetting to turn the lights off". It seems unlikely that your wife would compliment you with this form: "You're always taking the trash out", or "You're always telling me you love me." But I agree that learners should be made aware of the various interpretations of the form. – Shoe Sep 30 '23 at 18:53
  • @Shoe It's just pragmatics. A: "I'm such a bad boyfriend. I'm such a loser. You must hate me" B: "You're not a loser, and you're not a bad boyfriend. And I love that you go out of your way for me and that you're romantic. You're always buying me flowers, and looking out for me. You're the best" etc. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Sep 30 '23 at 22:59
  • Nice little story, which is counter-evidence to my speculation that "always + present progressive" in the second person is less likely in compliments than in disapproval. I'm not yet ready to abandon my assumption, but I will need to do some corpus research to support it, which is a project for wet winter weekends. – Shoe Oct 01 '23 at 07:25
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Some of these are mistakes - people make mistakes all the time, especially when speaking or when writing in a careless way.

Others are quite acceptable:

You can still make progress if you're going to the gym three times a week.

That's fine. Your current, temporary pattern of behaviour is to visit the gym three times a week, but that isn't expected to continue indefinitely.

You can say "Joe is going to the gym three times a week this year." "Temporary" might still mean lasting a whole year or more.

Similarly "It's important to make sure that you're sticking to the plan". Is a perfectly natural and idiomatic use of present continuous. It means "you are sticking to the plan for the time being". However the use of "having the right plan" is a mistake.

And so on. I shan't try to go through each example in detail. The other two are acceptable grammar. It is acceptable to say "I'm always doing something" to mean "I frequently do something".

James K
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0

I just want to say something about the use of "having" in sample 2:

It's really important to make sure that you're just having the right plan and you are sticking to it

It is true that we don't generally use the "ing" form of "have" unless it refers to an action. So:

She's having a good time

but not

*She's having a car.

I think what is happening in this example is that the speaker is very focused on action. They are not just concerned that you possess a plan, but that the plan is actually guiding your actions. In corporate-speak, we might say that you are "executing on a plan", but that's not necessarily the desired vibe for a vlog. So, aiming for informal speech but with a sense of action, the vlogger reformulated "having a plan" as a thing you do rather than a state you are in.

To language learners, I would say "don't try this at home." It's definitely not standard. But it doesn't seem to me like a typical native-speaker mistake; more a bending of the rules.

Mark Foskey
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