Exercise Language: Perfect Progressive

Perfect Progressive exercises, also known as “olevik täisminevik” or continuous past tense exercises, are integral tasks in effectively teaching the Estonian language. These exercises focus on the aspect of language that emphasizes an action’s ongoing process or its completion.

In the Estonian language, there isn’t a direct correlative tense to the English’s perfect progressive. However, we often use the simple past tense or start a sentence with “oli” (was) while describing an ongoing past action which might be the case for Perfect Progressive exercises. For instance, “Ma olin kirjutamas” would correspond to “I was writing”.

These exercises are essential as they help students understand and work with the syntax structure, verb conjugation and sentence formation depicting the ongoing or incomplete actions in the past. They offer a nuanced understanding of the time, the sequence and the context of the narrated events.

In the classroom, these exercises could involve translation activities, gap filling tasks, and sentence reconstruction exercises. These exercises can also be built into engaging tasks, such as storytelling, poetry, and essay writing, that further help students practice and master the use of the Estonian perfect progressive tense.