8.11 Gerund |
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As we can see the gerund in English
is formed by taking the verb and adding the ending ing.
eat => eating
sing => singing
cry => crying
swim => swimming
Unfortunately that doesn't always work the same way as in English. For more details please see chapter 8.17.
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In the example above you can see that the part-sentence is a description of a noun (the men), which means it has an adjectival purpose. In that kind of cases the gerundio cannot be used in Spanish. A gerund cannot be changed according to gender and number therefore they cannot be used adjectivally.
Have a look at this comparison |
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estar + gerundio forms the continuous |
Now we find something very similar to the continuous forms. They are formed with the conjugated form of estar and the gerundio.
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See the difference!
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The difference is quite clear - what is somebody doing at this moment in comparison to what is he doing in general.
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