For today’s English lesson, I am going to show you how to use always for complaining. I’m sure you already know that we use always plus the simple present to talk about habits:- I always drink coffee in the morning.
- Jack is always on time for work.
He’s always bothering Jack.
Well, we use always with the present progressive to express a person’s habitual actions that bother us. In other words, you can use this grammar to complain or show your annoyance about someone’s behavior. The nuance is someone is always doing something, and that bothers me:
- Mark is always leaving the lights on when he leaves the office.
- The boss is always micromanaging us. I wish he would just let us work.
It is also possible to use always with the present progressive to express a person’s habitual actions that do not annoy or bother us. You will need to think of the context of the sentence to know if the speaker is complaining or not:
- The CEO is always looking for new markets to expand our business. ☺
- The CEO is always looking for mistakes in our work. ☹
Now it’s your turn. How about trying to write an original sentence using some of the above patterns.