progressive tense

Generally, the progressive tense is required to express an action taking place in the present (I am going).

Many other languages, such as French, do not use progressive tenses.

There are no progressive tenses in standard German.

The use of progressive tenses is more pervasive than in Italian; E.g.

Progressive tense is marked by de.

The present progressive tense is formed by adding the prefix da- to the conjugated stem of the verb.

Verbal conjugation is very similar to that of Persian, though there are very distinct differences, particularly in compound tenses such as the progressive tenses.

Some of these constructions are described, particularly in teaching contexts, as tenses - for example, is eating is represented as the "present progressive tense" of eat.

The Present Perfect is used for every past action without strong connotation on the aspect of the verb, otherwise speakers prefer Imperfect or Past Progressive tenses.

A second kind of progressive tense is formed with the verb sein ("to be") + present participle, and is the literal translation of the English progressive tense (for present and past).

"Present Perfect Simple and Progressive Tenses in English and Persian: A Contrastive Analysis of Linguistic Systems" In The Third International Symposium on Language and Linguistics, Bangkok, Thailand, 747-755.

In contrast to the former one, this progressive tense is a formal correct part of standard German, but, however, very uncommon in spoken as well as in written, in colloquial as well as in formal German - thus very uncommon.

Portuguese originally constructed progressive tenses with a conjugated form of the verb "to be", followed by the gerund of the main verb, like English: e.g. Eu estou trabalhando "I am working" (cf. also the corresponding Italian phrase: (Io) sto lavorando).