Progressive Verb Forms

Progressive Verb Forms (also known as Continuous Forms). 
Structure of the Progressive Forms:
subject + auxiliary verb (be) + main verb (gerund) Sometimes a modal verb can be used before the auxiliary verb: subject + modal verb (could/would/should) + auxiliary verb (be) + main verb (gerund) There are other structures such as the Present Perfect Continous: subject + auxiliary verb (have) + past participle (been) + main verb (gerund) We use the progressive from when:

• we want to describe an action that is happing right now

• we want to describe an action that will be happening in the future

• we want to describe an activity or process that started in the past and is still going on

Here are some examples:

• We are reading an interesting story right now.

• My wife is flying to Madrid tomorrow.

• My wife would be flying to Madrid tomorrow if she had a holiday.

•  Our partners have been working with us for 10 years now.

Future tense

There is a common belief that the only way to express the future in English is to use the two little modal auxiliaries «will» and «shall». Sure they play a major part in this function but there are other ways too of expressing the future. Read 6 ways of expressing the future for details.

Below you can see a story written by Alan Townend, using some highlighted examples of how you can express the future.

Jealousy

I want you to imagine that you are about to visit a small village. It doesn't matter which country it's in because all villages are the same whichever part of the world they are in. There were only about 300 inhabitants in total in this particular village and everyone knew everybody's business. A typical street conversation would run like this: «I hear Joan's going to have a baby next year. I expect it'll be a boy this time I wouldn't be surprised. She's having a nurse come next week to help her with her 5 girls and maybe a boy will make life easier for her!» In this village people usually help each other whenever they can. Read the rest of the story of Jealusoy here.