In short

Attach います to the て-form and you get 〜ています - but it is not simply the English “-ing”. Depending on the verb it means an action in progress (食べています tabete imasu, “is eating”), a state left behind by a completed change (結婚しています kekkon shite imasu, “is married”), or a habit repeated over a period (毎日走っています mainichi hashitte imasu, “runs every day”). The verb decides which one - not you.

The rule

Step 1 - Build it. Take the て-form from lesson 13 and add いる／います. The pattern is V-て + います. The て-form never changes; all the tense and politeness sits on the いる at the end.

食べる taberu -> 食べて tabete -> 食べています tabete imasu 読む yomu -> 読んで yonde -> 読んでいます yonde imasu する suru -> して shite -> しています shite imasu

If the て-form ended in で (the ぬ・ぶ・む・ぐ verbs), it stays で: 死んで + います -> 死んでいます shinde imasu.

Step 2 - Decide which meaning you are getting. This is the real lesson. English treats “is eating” and “is married” as different grammar; Japanese uses one form for both, and the type of verb picks the reading.

(1) Progressive - with durative verbs, verbs that name an action taking up a stretch of time (食べる, 読む, 待つ, 書く, 降る, 話す). Here 〜ています matches English “-ing” exactly. 今、昼ご飯を食べています (Ima, hirugohan o tabete imasu) - “I am eating lunch now.”

(2) Resultant state - with punctual / change-of-state verbs, verbs that name an instantaneous switch from one state to another (結婚する, 知る, 来る, 行く, 死ぬ, 始まる, 覚える, 持つ). The change itself takes no time, so there is no “in progress” to point at. 〜ています therefore points at the state that remains afterwards:

• 結婚しています = “is married” (the wedding is over), not “is getting married”
• 来ています = “is here”, not “is coming”
• 死んでいます = “is dead”, not “is dying”
• 知っています = “knows” (has come to know)
• 住んでいます = “lives (somewhere)”
• 持っています = “has, owns” (has taken hold of)

住む sits in this group for a slightly different reason: living somewhere is not instantaneous, but it has no “in progress” reading either, so 住んでいます is simply the ordinary way to say where somebody lives.

This is the single biggest trap in the lesson. Reading 死んでいます as “is dying” is not a small slip - it inverts the meaning.

(3) Habit or repetition - with any verb, when the sentence covers a period rather than a moment. Adverbs like 毎日 mainichi (every day), いつも itsumo (always) and 最近 saikin (recently), or a job or a role, force this reading. 兄は銀行で働いています (Ani wa ginkō de hataraite imasu) - “My older brother works at a bank.” He is not at his desk this second; this is what he does. Jobs, studies and where you live are stated in 〜ています in Japanese, where English uses a plain present.

Step 3 - Conjugate the tail, not the て-form. Only います moves: past ていました, negative ていません, past negative ていませんでした. Note that the negative of a state is a state: 知っていません is odd, but 分かっていません, 覚えていません and 食べていません are all normal.

まだ + ていません is how Japanese says “not yet”. まだ宿題をしていません (Mada shukudai o shite imasen) - “I haven’t done my homework yet.” Do not use ませんでした here: that would mean “I didn’t do it” - a closed past event, not an outstanding one.

The 知る asymmetry. 知る shiru (“come to know”) is worth memorising as a fixed pair, because it is lopsided:

• Affirmative: 知っています shitte imasu - “I know.” The bare 知ります means “I will find out”, so it is almost never what you want.
• Negative: 知りません shirimasen - “I don’t know.” Here the ている form is not used; ×知っていません is wrong.

So the question 知っていますか is answered either はい、知っています or いいえ、知りません. Compare 覚える oboeru (“memorise”), which is regular on both sides: 覚えています／覚えていません.

Experience-like use. With a count, the resultant-state reading shades into a record of experience: 日本に三回行っています (Nihon ni sankai itte imasu) - “I have been to Japan three times.” This is the “on my record so far” flavour; the dedicated experience pattern is 〜たことがある.

Two things deliberately left out. The contraction 〜てる (食べてる tabeteru) drops the い and is very common in speech, but it is casual - keep the い in anything formal or written; it belongs with casual style. And 〜てある, which also describes a state but implies somebody arranged it on purpose, is inseparable from transitivity and is handled in the next lesson.

Forms & patterns

Formation across the verb groups.

The tail conjugates; the て-form never does.

Which reading does the verb give you? Verbs in the bottom block have no progressive reading at all.

Examples

Common mistakes

• 田中さんを知りますか。 (Tanaka-san o shirimasu ka.) -> 田中さんを知っていますか。 (Tanaka-san o shitte imasu ka.) - 知る names the instant of learning something. To say you already know, you need the resulting state: 知っています. The bare 知ります reads as “will I find out?”.
• いいえ、知っていません。 (Iie, shitte imasen.) -> いいえ、知りません。 (Iie, shirimasen.) - The one verb that breaks the pattern. Affirmative takes ています, while the negative attaches ません straight to the verb. Learn the pair as a unit.
• 私は大阪に住みます。 (Watashi wa Ōsaka ni sumimasu.) -> 私は大阪に住んでいます。 (Watashi wa Ōsaka ni sunde imasu.) - 住む describes an ongoing state, so the bare ます-form is a future move (“I will go and live in Ōsaka”). Ongoing residence is always 住んでいます.
• まだ食べませんでした。 (Mada tabemasen deshita.) -> まだ食べていません。 (Mada tabete imasen.) - “Not yet” describes a state that has not arrived yet, so it needs ていません. ませんでした reports a closed past event - “I did not eat” - instead of the state of still not having eaten.
• ご飯を食べてます。 (Gohan o tabetemasu.) -> ご飯を食べています。 (Gohan o tabete imasu.) - Dropping the い is a casual spoken contraction. It is common in relaxed conversation, even with ます attached, but out of place in formal speech, exams and anything written.

Tips

• Ask yourself: instant or stretch? If the verb names something that takes time (eat, read, wait, rain), 〜ています = “-ing”. If it names a switch that happens in an instant (marry, die, arrive, start, come to know), there is nothing to be in the middle of, so 〜ています = the state afterwards. This one test resolves almost every case.
• English “is + -ing” is a false friend. 死んでいます is “is dead”, not “is dying”; 来ています is “is here”, not “is on the way”; 始まっています is “has already started”, not “is starting”. Translate the situation, never the English tense.
• Say your job and your address in 〜ています. English uses a plain present for “I work at a bank” and “I live in Tōkyō”, but Japanese puts both in 〜ています - 働いています as a standing role or habit, 住んでいます as a state - so those are the normal, natural forms. Using 働きます／住みます here is the giveaway of a beginner.
• Only the last word carries tense. Everything before います is frozen. To move a sentence into the past you touch nothing but the tail: 食べています -> 食べていました. This same “conjugate only the auxiliary” habit will serve you for 〜ておく, 〜てしまう and 〜てみる later on.