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Exercise: practise the present continuous of radical-changing verbs

There is a slight complication in continuous forms which essentially affects -ir verbs:

Recall that there are generally two patterns for -ir verbs in the present tense: an e vowel can change to i (pedir > pido), or to ie (mentir > miento).

• In both of these cases, e changes to i in the gerund: pidiendo, mintiendo.
• In the case of dormir and morir, which unusually have the vowel change o > ue in the present tense, have the change o > u in the gerund: durmiendo, muriendo;
• The irregular verbs decir and venir copy the vowel change of the preterite and have the gerunds diciendo, viniendo¹.

To practise these gerunds with vowel changes, fill in the grid below. Remember: all of the verbs you'll use will be -ir verbs (click the 'vocabulary' button for a list), including the irregular verbs decir and venir.

Next...

If you've gone through all the exercises so far, you've hopefully come to grips pretty well with the present continuous. On the next page is a "final revision" exercise, in which all of the gerunds from the previous few pages are combined.

Alternatively, you may wish to skip straight ahead to the imperfect continuous.

1. Another less usual gerund with a similar pattern is that of poder > pudiendo.

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