Progressive tenses describe ongoing actions at the time of utterance. Chinese languages make clear distinctions of progressive actions. In Cantonese, a progressive marker term expresses the continuous aspect. For example, similar terms are used to describe the following sentences:
“I am wearing clothes.”
“I am putting clothes.”
In general, however, the progressive aspect is assumed.
In Mandarin, there is no definitive verb for expressing a progressive action. However, a cognate verb suffix “zhe” can be used in a context. Some unrelated words have multiple meanings despite the fact that they can still be used. Both “zai” and “zhengzai” can be used as progressive markers. In most situations, these two forms are used interchangeably. The example below shows one use of the verbs.
“Ta keneng zai duobi sheme”
In English, it means:
“He is possibly avoiding something.”
In the sentence below, the two terms are used interchangeably:
“Zhendema ni you zai/zhengzai qianren” – “Really? You’re deceiving people.”