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¿Los estudiantes están charlando o estudiando?

¿Los estudiantes están charlando o estudiando?
Are the students chatting or studying?
From Lesson 61:The present continuous (estar + -ando, -iendo)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about ¿Los estudiantes están charlando o estudiando?

Why do we use están instead of son for "are"?
To say what people are doing right now (the present continuous), Spanish always uses the verb estar (to be) plus a gerund (an "-ing" word). Since Los estudiantes is plural (they), we use están. We never use ser to talk about actions in progress.
How do we get the words charlando and estudiando?
These are called gerunds, which are the equivalent of "-ing" words in English. To make them for regular verbs that end in "-ar" like charlar (to chat) and estudiar (to study), you simply drop the "-ar" and add -ando.
In English we ask "Are the students...", so why doesn't the Spanish sentence start with Están?
In Spanish, you don't have to change the word order to ask a question. You can keep the normal statement order (Subject + Verb: Los estudiantes están...) and just add question marks and a questioning tone of voice. However, starting with ¿Están los estudiantes... is also completely correct!
Why isn't there a second están before estudiando?
Just like in English ("Are they chatting or studying?"), you don't need to repeat the helping verb están if it applies to both actions. You can just connect the two gerunds with o (or) since they share the same subject.

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