Breakdown of El continente se viene desplazando y está ganando milímetros.
y
and
estar
to be (location/state)
ganar
to win / to earn
venir
to come
el continente
the continent
desplazarse
to shift
el milímetro
the millimeter
Questions & Answers about El continente se viene desplazando y está ganando milímetros.
Why does this sentence use viene desplazando instead of ha estado desplazando for "has been shifting"?
Using venir + gerund (like viene desplazando) is a common way in Spanish to talk about an action that started in the past and has been gradually building up or continuing to the present. While ha estado desplazando also translates to "has been shifting," the venir structure strongly emphasizes the gradual, cumulative nature of the movement over time.
Why is there a se before viene desplazando?
The verb here is desplazarse, which means "to move" or "to shift" from one place to another. When you have a pronoun like se with a gerund verb phrase, you can put it right before the conjugated verb (se viene desplazando) or attach it to the end of the gerund (viene desplazándose, with an added accent mark to keep the stress in the right place). Both mean the exact same thing!
Why does the sentence switch to está ganando instead of using viene again?
The writer is making a subtle distinction in time. Se viene desplazando highlights the historical, accumulating process ("has been shifting" over a long time). Switching to está ganando (using estar + gerund) drops the focus on the past and simply describes what is happening right now ("is currently gaining").
Can ganar really be used to talk about gaining distance or size?
Yes! While you probably first learned ganar as "to win" (a game) or "to earn" (money), it is also used just like the English word "gain" when talking about increasing in size, ground, speed, or, in this case, millimeters.
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