Learn how to express an ongoing action with Spanish verb llevar and present participle
In Spanish we can use the verb llevar followed by a present participle (Gerundio/Spanish present participle) in order to express the duration of an ongoing action:
llevar (conjugated) + present participle
Have a look at the following examples:
Carlos lleva trabajando en ese colegio dos años.Carlos has been working in that school for two years.
Notice how:
- the time phrase (tres días, diez minutos, dos años...) can be placed either at the end of the verbal structure or in between the verb llevar and the present participle.
- the Spanish tenses used with this structure are El Presente and El Pretérito Imperfecto. The perfect tenses are not used.
- However, note that the equivalent tenses in English are the perfect tenses or the progressive perfect tenses (have done, have been doing, had been doing,...)
The negative form: llevar sin
If we want to express the same but in the negative, the structure changes to:
llevar (conjugated) + sin + infinitive
Note that after any preposition, the form of the verb that follows is the infinitive. See lesson at the bottom of this page for details on this topic.
For example:
You can see that in the negative form, the time phrase can also be placed straight after llevar, or after the whole structure.
See also Spanish verbs Llevar vs Llevarse (pronominal verbs), Using llevar + past participle to express the completion of an action so far (perífrasis verbal) and Using the infinitive after prepositions in Spanish (not present participle)
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