| Let's look at the sentence pattern. |
| Do you remember how the character said, |
| "She's writing more carefully." |
| Está escribiendo con más cuidado. |
| Está escribiendo con más cuidado. |
| This sentence follows the pattern here: |
| estar + gerund |
| "to be + gerund" |
| The Present Progressive tense indicates actions occurring at the current moment of speech. |
| To form it, just use a form of estar, which means "to be," followed by the -ing form of a verb in Spanish, known as the gerundio. We will learn how to form the gerund in the next slide. |
| You'll often hear this pattern when someone is explaining what they or someone else is doing right now. |
| It's a very common and useful way to talk about what's going on in the present. |
| Here's how the line from the dialogue uses the pattern. |
| Está escribiendo con más cuidado. |
| "She's writing more carefully." |
| Let's break it down: |
| Está, the third-person singular form of the verb estar, meaning "she is," |
| escribiendo, the gerund of escribir, meaning "writing," |
| con, a preposition meaning "with," |
| más, meaning "more," |
| cuidado, meaning "care" or "carefulness." |
| Altogether: |
| Está escribiendo con más cuidado. |
| "She's writing more carefully." |
| In the dialogue, we also heard: |
| En casa, está practicando la ortografía con un cuaderno especial. |
| "At home, she's practicing spelling with a special notebook." |
| Here, |
| En casa, a phrase meaning "at home," |
| está, the third-person singular form of estar, meaning "she is," |
| practicando, the gerund of practicar, meaning "practicing," |
| la ortografía, meaning "spelling," |
| con, a preposition meaning "with," |
| un cuaderno especial, meaning "a special notebook." |
| Altogether: |
| En casa, está practicando la ortografía con un cuaderno especial. |
| "At home, she's practicing spelling with a special notebook." |
| As you can see in the table, forming the gerund is easy. |
| For -ar verbs like practicar, we drop the -ar and add -ando. So, practicar becomes practicando. |
| For -er and -ir verbs, like escribir, we drop the ending and add -iendo. escribir becomes escribiendo. |
| There is one small spelling rule to remember. When the stem of an -er or -ir verb ends in a vowel, like in the verb leer (to read), the i of -iendo changes to a y. That's why we say leyendo, not "leiendo." This little change just makes the word easier to say. |
| Now let's look at some speaking examples. |
| Estoy leyendo un libro muy interesante. |
| "I'm reading a very interesting book." |
| Can you see how the pattern applies here? |
| Let's break it down: |
| Estoy, meaning "I am," |
| leyendo, the gerund of leer, meaning "reading," |
| un libro, meaning "a book," |
| muy, meaning "very," |
| interesante, meaning "interesting." |
| Altogether: |
| Estoy leyendo un libro muy interesante. |
| "I'm reading a very interesting book." |
| Here's another example |
| Mi hermana está cocinando la cena. |
| "My sister is cooking dinner." |
| Mi hermana está cocinando la cena. |
| "My sister is cooking dinner." |
| Let's try one more, |
| ¿Estás estudiando para el examen? |
| "Are you studying for the exam?" |
| ¿Estás estudiando para el examen? |
| "Are you studying for the exam?" |
| Another one. |
| Luis y yo estamos viendo una película. |
| "Luis and I are watching a movie." |
| Luis y yo estamos viendo una película. |
| "Luis and I are watching a movie." |
| One last example. |
| Los niños están jugando en el parque. |
| "The kids are playing in the park." |
| Los niños están jugando en el parque. |
| "The kids are playing in the park." |
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