¿Estás termina(n)do?

¿Estás termina(n)do?
 

I was working with my ESL class the other day, and a couple of the girls in the back seemed to have finished the 10 problems that I assigned to them. I was thinking "are you finished?", so I said: "¿estás terminado?" and both girls immediately corrected me that it should be: "¿estás terminando?" I even asked a few other Spanish-speaking students, and sure enough, they verified that it is correct. Huh? Why are they using the progressive instead of the participle. That doesn't make sense to me........

(Eventually, we decided that it would have been easier for me to say: "¿terminaste?" Sounds good to me........ :))

¿Estás terminando? - Are you finishing?

¿Has terminado? - Have you finished - are you finished?

¿Terminaste? - Did you finish?

This is the way it is, at least for me. If there is a more esoteric explanation to this, most likely irma and Angélica will be able to answer. :)

Exactly! That's why I didn't understand. Why not ask a question with "terminado"?

I believe that the phrase estas terminado means more a you are finish, it wanting to say you have end, like to you have died.

I believe that correct word should have been you have finish.

He terminado. Instead of estas terminado.
Or also you can say I have finish, he acabado.

Have a good day.

There in red ther is a question with terminado. What are you talking about? :rolleyes:

That's is not your problem in your head, although you seem to think it is.

I'd say it has to do with the verb... ;)

Something similar happens to us when we have to compare "what is your name", "I am hungry" and some other forms of questioning. :D

I would understand if the kids told me to say "¿Has terminado?" ... but I don't understand the use of "terminando"....

Hernan - we posted at the same time. What you're saying makes sense to me. But a whole bunch of native Spanish speaking students spontaneously agreed that the right word is "terminando".......... That's what I don't understand...

Oh, that's "are you finishing' as in "are you almost done?"

@Lou Ann: As Hernán said, "¿estás terminando?" means "are you almost finished?".

But what you actually want to say is:

"¿Ya terminaste?" or "¿Ya terminaron?"

Exactly - that's what I didn't understand. The girls were obviously finished with the assigned problems. But it's customary to casually ask a student if he/she is finished. In English, I would say "are you finished?", knowing that the answer will be affirmative because I'm LOOKING AT the completed paper. The girls were sitting there, watching me looking at their completed papers, and they insisted that the question should be "¿estás terminando?" And the other kids agreed. We all knew that they were beyond "almost" ... so why did they want me to use "terminando"? Or do they just collectively use poor grammar?

They express themselves poorly. That's all.

:)

They must have thought about the closest approach to what you were saying.

Btw, "estar terminado" has a negative meaning, as if someone has been fired, executed, exhausted, too old for something, etc.

Again, everything you're both saying to me makes sense. It was just weird that a bunch of kids jumped into the conversation and agreed.... I'll stick with "¿has terminado?" or "¿terminaste?". :)

I think they were trying to figure out what you were saying. The "estás "you used goes naturally with the present progressive. If you had said ¿Han terminado? or better still ¿ya terminaron? they would have certainly
understood you.

:):):)