Spanish language learning forums - Question about gerund...

Quote:

Originally Posted by hola (Post 24991)

can you use the gerund twice in one sentence between periods and commas?

¿Por qué no estás viviendo en un dormitorio y disfrutando de tu vida universitaria? :good:
¿Por qué no vives en un dormitorio y disfrutas de tu vida universitaria? :good::good:

or:
por que no estas en un dormitorio, viviendo y disfrutando de tu vida universitaria? :bad: (The verb estás, in this case, stands alone and doesn't tie to the gerundios in the secondary clause.)

or do you have to write it like this:

¿Por qué no estás viviendo en un dormitorio y disfrutas de tu vida universitaria? :bad: (This sounds strange to me. I wouldn't mix the progressive with the indicative.)

can one use of "estar" be enough for two words between periods and commas? which one is correct?

It is the present progressive (estar + gerundio) that is in question here. This is a compound verb (there are two components). You're wondering if two or more gerundios (the second part of the compound verb) can exist with only one occurrence of estar (the first part of the compound verb). I've seen this done many times, so the answer must be yes.
So long as both parts of the compound verb lie in the same clause, different gerundios can 'leech off' the single estar.
The different gerundios can be separated by a connector, like y, or by commas (a series).

These constructs are all valid:
estar + gerundio y gerundio
estar + gerundio o gerundio
estar + gerundio, gerundio, gerundio y/o gerundio

These are not:
estar , gerundio
estar . gerundio