Stare + gerundio (present progressive)

Che cosa stai facendo? — Sto mangiando.What are you doing? — I'm eating.

To stress that an action is in progress right now, Italian uses a form of stare + the gerundio. It is the Italian counterpart of English I am eating, but Italian uses it less often than English does.

Quick shortcut: stare (conjugated) + gerundio: Sto mangiando. Stai lavorando? Stanno guardando un film.

1. Forming the gerundio

For regular verbs, take the infinitive and replace the ending:

The spelling of the stem stays the same: cercare → cercando, mangiare → mangiando, pagare → pagando.

A few very common verbs are irregular, because their gerundio is built on a longer, older stem:

2. Stare + gerundio

Only stare changes with the subject. The gerundio never changes:

More examples: Sto leggendo un libro. (I'm reading a book.) Maria sta dormendo. (Maria is sleeping.) Che cosa state facendo? (What are you doing?)

For the present of stare, see Present tense: common irregular verbs.

3. Pronouns and reflexive verbs

Object pronouns and reflexive pronouns can go before stare or be attached to the gerundio. Both are correct:

• Lo sto leggendo. / Sto leggendolo. (I'm reading it.)
• Mi sto lavando. / Sto lavandomi. (I'm washing.)

For more on pronoun position, see Position of object pronouns.

4. In the past: stavo + gerundio

With stare in the imperfetto (stavo, stavi, stava…), the construction describes an action that was in progress in the past:

• Stavo mangiando quando hai telefonato. (I was eating when you called.)

For the imperfetto, see Imperfetto.

5. When to use the simple present instead

Italian often uses the simple present even when English uses the -ing form: Che cosa fai? (What are you doing?) Cosa leggi? (What are you reading?) Studio. (I'm studying.) Stare + gerundio is the choice when you want to stress that the action is in progress at this very moment.

For ordinary plans about the future, Italian normally uses the simple present or the futuro: Domani vado a Roma. / Domani andrò a Roma. The progressive can appear with a future time expression only in special contexts (for example Domani sto lavorando tutto il giorno, when the day is already fixed), so it can wait for a later level.

It is also not used for habits and states, so a verb like sapere or piacere does not take it: ❌ Sto sapendo la risposta. → ✅ So la risposta. For "about to", see Stare per + infinitive.

Common mistakes

• ❌ Sto mangiare. → ✅ Sto mangiando. (a gerundio, not an infinitive)
• ❌ Sto mangio. → ✅ Sto mangiando. (not a conjugated verb)
• ❌ Sto fando i compiti. → ✅ Sto facendo i compiti. (irregular gerundio)
• ❌ Sto parlano. → ✅ Stanno parlando. (stare changes, the gerundio doesn't)
• ❌ Sto sapendo la risposta. → ✅ So la risposta. (states like sapere don't take stare + gerundio)

Quick check

Here are a few sentences about what is happening right now. Each one goes into stare + gerundio.

1. io / leggere
2. tu / fare / i compiti?
3. Maria / dormire
4. noi / bere / un caffè
5. loro / dire / la verità
6. (past) io / mangiare

Key takeaways

• Stare + gerundio stresses that an action is in progress right now: Sto mangiando.
• The gerundio is -ando for -are verbs and -endo for -ere and -ire verbs; fare, dire, bere, tradurre are irregular (facendo, dicendo, bevendo, traducendo).
• Only stare changes with the subject; the gerundio stays the same.
• Pronouns go before stare or attach to the gerundio: Lo sto leggendo / Sto leggendolo.
• The simple present is often enough in Italian, and for ordinary future plans the present or the futuro is the normal choice.