Word of the week: am sitzen

am sitzen: as in, Ich bin am sitzen (I am sitting).

It’s no coincidence that sometimes my posts coincide with some of that week’s lesson plans. My most recent post was partially in response to a television program combined with personal experience and reflection on what I was teaching that week. I recently had to explain the difference between the present simple and present continuous.

On Monday the topic once again raised its head and as I was explaining the difference between an action that’s in progress and one that’s finished I used the adverb “gerade” with a German sentence in comparison to an English present continuous sentence to show something that is happening.

I made the comment that it seems to me there is no real equivalent in German to convey something like “I am sitting in a chair,” as in German you would just use the present tense. But then one of the participants told me that in this region (Aachen and close by I guess?), some people would say “am sitzen” to convey an action in progress, as in, “Ich bin am sitzen.”

So apparently the form is the preposition, “am,” meaning, “at,” and the unconjugated form of the verb that describes the action you’re doing at the moment. Ich bin am Kaffee trinken, und wünsche Dir einen schönen Tag noch!