“ing” verb format
 

Hi. Is it a good rule of thumb that unless an “ing” verb follows a form of Estar, the Spanish translation should be the infinitive and not the present participle ?

Hi Jay, can you give some examples of what you mean?

In English there are two parts of speech that end in -ing; the gerund and the present participle.

The present participle is used in conjunction with a conjugated form of 'to be' to form the progressive or continuous form of a verb.
The gerund acts as a noun.

In Spanish the equivalent of the English present participle is called the gerundio. It is the part of speech that ends in -ando/-iendo (sometimes -yendo), and is used in conjunction with a conjugated form of estar.

El infinitivo is used in Spanish as a noun. This is the counterpart to the English gerund.

Note that the English word gerund and the Spanish word gerundio DO NOT mean the same thing.

Here are two sentences that contain examples of the English gerund and the Spanish infinitivo.
I like swimming.
Me gusta nadar.

Seeing is believing.
Ver es creer.

It appears you already know how the progressive or continuous verb forms are used, so I won't list any examples.

There are times when the Spanish gerundio is used with a conjugated form of the verb andar, like ando buscando, as an alternate way of saying estoy buscando.

Sometimes the gerundio is used alone. This corresponds with the English usage of the present participle as an adverb. Here are some examples:
Believing what he said, we decided to enter the forest at dusk.
Creyendo lo que dijo él, decidimos entrar el bosque al anochecer.

You will also see several cases of the gerundio following the verbs seguir and continuar.
Sigue siendo igual. = It remains the same.
Continúa andando con nosotros, aunque lo fatiga. = He keeps walking with us, even though it wears him out.

Rusty. Thank you very much. I was looking at it way to simplified. Now I know that there are more verbs than Estar that require the gerund. And I now understand the concept of an ing verb being use a noun.

Tomismo, thanks. Rusty went over it for me.

Thanks, Jeff.

Just so there's no misunderstanding, 'estar + gerundio' form the progressive/continuous form in Spanish, and the English equivalent is 'to be + present participle'. The Spanish gerundio and the English present participle are the same thing in this case!

Even though the English gerund looks like a present participle (also ending in -ing) it always functions as a noun. Therefore, it can't be called a verb. Technically speaking, the present participle is not a verb, either. That's why English grammarians give each of these parts of speech a different name. A verb never ends in -ing.

A gerund in Spanish doesn't have the same ending as the gerundio. They are different parts of speech. Neither is a verb. This is why different grammatical terms exist-infinitivo y gerundio.

If you look at all the uses of the Spanish gerundio, you'll see that they align with English present participle usage.