Hi guys and welcome to today’s awesome online Japanese article from Bondlingo. Today we are going to be discussing the continuous form ている and how that works to express ongoing action. This lesson is an absolute fundamental piece of grammar that you are going to need to know.
We are first going to understand what it is and where it can be used, then we are going to look at how to conjugate this verb form. Next, we will now look at some example sentences and then finally finish with an awesome study tip for you to take away and use away from the lesson in your own time. Okay everyone, be sure to grab your notebooks and a cup of coffee, let’s get straight into it!
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So what is the continuous form?
The continuous form indicates that something is ongoing and happening right now. If you are eating right now you can use it. If you are reading right now you can use it. You can also use it with the past tense to indicate that something was happening.
Let’s have a look at how to make these continuous form verbs now.
How can I make continuous form verbs?
To make the continuous form it is fairly simple, all you need to do is change a very into its “TE” て form and add いる “iru” to the end of it. If you want to be more polite that will be “Te Imasu” ています. Another note to keep in mind is that in informal spoken language the い can be omitted and shortened down to just てる.
Look at the table below to see some conjugation examples
| たべる | taberu | たべている | tabeteiru |
| のむ | nomu | のんでいる | nondeiru |
| よむ | yomu | よんでいる | yondeimasu |
| する | suru | しています | shiteimasu |
Now you have a good understanding of how to form these continuous form verbs, let’s look at some sentences to see them in action.
Let’s make some continuous form sentences
Take a look at these sentences and make sure you repeat them out loud at least 5 times, this way you will be able to remember the pattern automatically later.
If you are currently doing your homework right now (In a continuous state of doing your homework, you can use:
宿題をやっています。
shukudai o yatte imasu.
currently doing homework.
See how やる becomes やっています it’s a really simple structure but extremely important to understand.
Imagine that someone is trying to speak to you but you are on the phone currently with your father, you can say:
お父さんと電話をしています。
otousan to denwa o shite imasu.
I am currently on the phone with my dad.
Imagine your parents are giving you a lecture, they could say to you, are you even listing? The perfect way to say this would be:
両親の話を聞いているの？
ryoushin no hanashi o kiite iru no?
Are you listening to what your parents are saying?
Now you are reading a funny book. You haven’t just read it, you aren’t about to read it, you are reading this right now. To say this you would say:
可笑しい本を読んでいる。
Okashii hon o yonde iru.
I am reading a funny book.
Ensure that you read these sentences aloud many times to engrain the patterns into your brain. We are now going to have a look at an effective study tip.
An effective study tip for mastering the continuous form.
So for today’s effective study tip to help you remember the ている for you should make a list of 20 verbs, things you do on a daily basis. Once you have combined these you should first conjugate the verbs to the continuous form and then put them into sentences. By doing this your confidence will skyrocket in making and using these awesome continuous verbs and sentences.
It is so important to go away and work on your studies independently after these articles. Mayne people will read something once and believe they understand it, only to forget it within the next few days. Don’t fall into that trap and push yourself to take that extra initiative.
Wow, what an amazing lesson! This is such an important point for basic Japanese sentence structures so if needs be, re read the entire article in a couple of days to refresh yourself on what has been discussed. We really hope you enjoyed today’s lesson and really got a lot from it. As always if you have any questions or more ideas on content you would like us to write about please do get in touch. We make these lessons for you guys and want to give you as much value as possible. Have an amazing day everyone and see you in the next online Japanese lesson from Bondlingo.