Ms Kunze is walking towards the door and reaching for her bag. instead of: Frau Kunze läuft zur Tür und greift dabei nach ihrer Tasche.

Ms Kunze is reaching for her bag and walking towards the door.

in participle clauses the present participle action happens at the same time as the action in the main clauseĮxamples: Nach ihrer Tasche greifend läuft Frau Kunze zur Tür.

We use the German present participle for simultaneous actions or actions that are in progress at or around the moment of speaking. Whew! That was kind of complicated.When to use the present participle in German I use the term verbal instead of nonfinite clause to refer to verbs that act as other parts of speech. They would point out the difference between a clause with a finite verb (the main verb used in an independent and dependent clause) and a 'clause' with a nonfinite verb (verbs that are not functioning as main verbs, including verbs that act as other parts of speech). However, it's important to recognize that some schools of thought define terms a bit differently than we do here at Grammar Revolution. (People who use the term participle clause may think of the word that the participle is modifying as the 'subject' of the participle clause.) I find that the term participle clause can be confusing to people because we typically define clauses as groups of words that contain both a subject and a verb, and participial phrases ( participle clauses) do not contain a subject. The short answer is that a participle clause is simply a different name for a participial phrase.

What is a participle