Progressive Form (-고 있다)

The progressive form is used to express an action in progress. The English progressive form takes a copula (am, is, are) and a verb with “-ing”, as in “John is sleeping”. The Korean progressive form takes -고 있다. For instance, consider the following sentences:

To express a past action that was in progress, the past tense marker 었/았 is added to the stem of 있다 as in, 책을 읽고 있었어요 “(I) was reading a book”. Here are more examples.

To express respect to the subject, the verb 계시다(-고 계세요) is used instead of 있다(-고 있어요).

To negate a progressive form, one can use either a short form negation or a long form negation. For example, 가게 문을 열고 있어요 “(They) are opening the store door” can be negated both in the short and long form:

* Click to read related posts.
Grammar for Intermediates
Endings of Sentences
Copula (Be & Be Not, 이다 & 아니다)
Past tense and double past tense (과거시제)
Negation (부정문)

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