Present Participle/gerund

Present Participle/gerund
 

I have a question regarding the gerund in Spanish and how commonly it's used. I've seen it a lots of times in textbooks and other online material, but I wonder if this is catering to the native English speakers or if it's actually a commonly used form?
The reason I'm asking is because while I do know it exists in French and Italian it's not very often used. Doesn't exist at all in German. I've never actually heard it in spoken Spanish, though my listening comprehension is limited and I could have easily missed it.

There are many threads already written on this topic. :)

The Spanish gerundio can be used as an equivalent to the English present participle. The reason I wrote the Spanish name is because the gerundio should NOT be confused with the English gerund. The English gerund and the English present participle are two different parts of speech.

The gerundio is a very common Spanish part of speech, but native English speakers tend to overuse and even incorrectly use it while learning.

Just to show I am still alive, I was replying to that post. It took me so long to write, with interruptions, that Rusty beat me to it. I'll say it anyway:

What is understood as a gerund, the verbal noun, in English does not exist in Spanish.

Expressions like "I like drawing" use a gerund in English, whereas Spanish, like German, uses the infinitive, me gusta dibujar.

The confusion arises because Spanish calls the present participle the gerundio. This is an adjective, and some grammar books still call this the gerund, which is even more confusing. It clearly does exist, in cases like:

Marta siguió cantando
Vi a los niños jugando en el parque (= Vi jugar a los niños en el parque)
Salió corriendo
Nos divertimos bailando
Vengo diciendo que es imposible

And especially in the continuous form of the verb:

está jugando con tus sentimientos
he is playing with your feelings.

Thank you both for your replies. Sorry to rehash old topics, I'll remember to search the forums first next time.
Very interesting. I remember being very confused when I first started to learn English, but it's become second nature now. Hopefully Spanish will be the same eventually. I do find it interesting that it's fairly common while it's hardly ever used in French.