Forming Present Participles In Spanish

As we saw yesterday in our short lesson on forming past participles in Spanish, there are many instances in Spanish where you would want to use the present or past participle.  The present participle in Spanish corresponds more or less with the -ing ending in English, although -ing is used much more liberally in English than its Spanish counterpart.

Forming The Present Participle In Spanish

The rules for forming the present participle are just as simple as those for forming the past participle.

• For -ar verbs you drop the -ar and add -ando to the end of the word.  Thus, the present participle of pasar – “to happen,” is pasando – “happening”.
• For -er and -ir verbs you drop the -er or -ir and add -iendo to the end of the word.  Thus, the present participle of comer – “to eat” is comiendo – “eating” and the past participle of vivir – “to live” is viviendo – “living”

Common Verbs With Irregular Present Participles

Just as with the past participle, there are some common Spanish verbs with an irregular present participle.  Some of these are an attempt to avoid an awkward spelling.

• Leer (to read) -> leyendo
• Ir (to go) -> yendo

Most other verbs with an irregular present participle still take the -ando and -iendo endings like regular verbs, but the stem is changed instead.

• Venir (to come) -> viniendo
• Decir (to say) -> diciendo
• Incluir (to include) -> incluyendo
• Dormir (to sleep) -> durmiendo