Saying what is happening now in Japanese

Level A1

Saying what is happening now in Japanese

By the end of this lesson, you can say what you are doing right now in Japanese: 今食べています (ima tabete imasu), “I'm eating now”, and 今飲んでいます (ima nonde imasu), “I'm drinking now”. It all comes down to one idea: with these two verbs, in the present moment, the て form followed by います shows an action in progress. That does not make ています the English -ing for every verb and every situation.

Quick review: います, ます and the て form

Three pieces come back today, even if this is your first time seeing them. 猫がいます (neko ga imasu) means “there's a cat”: います says that a person or an animal is there. パンを食べます (pan o tabemasu), “I eat bread”, and 水を飲みます (mizu o nomimasu), “I drink water”, give the thing, を (o) and the verb at the end.

The third piece is the て form, which you meet in requests: 食べてください (tabete kudasai), “please eat”, and 飲んでください (nonde kudasai), “please drink”. Today, 食べて (tabete) and 飲んで (nonde) join up with います.

今, “now”, and the words coming back

今 (ima) means “now”: the moment you are speaking. The other four come back for the examples: パン (pan) is bread, ご飯 (gohan) is cooked rice, 水 (mizu) is water and 猫 (neko) is cat.

On a video call

Two colleagues are talking on a video call at lunchtime. The second is having lunch with Ana, and the first is watching through the camera. Every answer uses ています because it is about what is happening during the call. The second question doesn't even say 今: the scene already makes it clear this is now. いいえ (iie) means “no”, and あ (a) is the “oh” of someone who has just noticed something.

The て form + います

Build it like this: the thing, を, the て form and います. When the thing is already clear, as in 今食べています, you keep just the て form and います. 食べます drops ます and takes て: 食べて, 食べています (tabete imasu). 飲みます changes more: 飲んで, 飲んでいます (nonde imasu), not 飲みて. Other verbs have their own paths; for now, these two are enough.

Here います doesn't say that something exists: next to the て form, it shows that the action is in progress. On its card this helper appears as ている (te iru), the dictionary form; here you say います. 今 usually opens the sentence, and the comma after it is optional. Swap the thing and keep a pairing that makes sense: パン, ご飯 and これ (kore, “this”) with 食べています, 水 with 飲んでいます.

今(いま)、パン／ご飯／水／これを食べて／飲んでいます。

In progress or not: ます and ています

パンを食べます says what you usually do or are going to do: “I eat bread” or “I'll eat bread”. In a scene like this lesson's, パンを食べています says it is happening now: “I'm eating bread”. The pair 水を飲みます and 水を飲んでいます works the same way.

今 can't do this job by itself. 今食べます (ima tabemasu) is “I'll eat now”: the meal hasn't started yet. 今食べています is “I'm eating now”. It is ています that shows the action in progress.

Asking, and talking about other people

To ask, add か (ka) at the end: 今、食べていますか (ima, tabete imasu ka), “are you eating now?”. With 何, “what”, the question asks for the thing: 何を飲んでいますか (nani o nonde imasu ka). Here 何 is read nani, not nan as in 何ですか (nan desu ka).

To talk about someone else, start with them: アナさんは今、水を飲んでいます (Ana-san wa ima, mizu o nonde imasu). Once it's clear who you mean, the name can be left out, as in the answer in the dialogue: いいえ、ご飯を食べています (iie, gohan o tabete imasu), “no, she's eating rice”. For something you have just noticed, these examples use が, as in 猫がいます: 猫が水を飲んでいます (neko ga mizu o nonde imasu), “the cat is drinking water”.

ています isn't always -ing

In this lesson, with 今 or with the scene in front of you, 食べています and 飲んでいます show an action in progress. Outside that, the same form can say something else: with 毎日 (mainichi), “every day”, 毎日水を飲んでいます (mainichi mizu o nonde imasu) is “I drink water every day”, a habit.

With other verbs the meaning changes too: 知っています (shitte imasu) is “I know”, not an action in progress. And going the other way fails as well: “I'm coming!”, called out as you set off, is 今行きます (ima ikimasu), with no ています. Keep ています as “in progress now” for this situation, not as an automatic translation of -ing.

Your turn, and the summary

Say each sentence aloud before you look at the matching line below. First, say that you're drinking water now. Next, ask someone what they're eating now. Then say that Ana is eating bread now. Finally, you've just noticed a cat drinking water: say so.

In short: with these two verbs, for an action in progress now, use the て form and います: 食べています, 飲んでいます. 今 points to the moment, か makes the question, and ます is still there for what you usually do or are going to do.

Practise this lesson

Next lessons