Learn Spanish (Spain): Ahora mismo estoy leyendo la reseña.

Ahora mismo estoy leyendo la reseña.

I am reading the review right now.

Breakdown of Ahora mismo estoy leyendo la reseña.

leer

to read

estar

to be (location/state)

ahora

now

mismo

right (emphatic: right here / right now)

Questions & Answers about Ahora mismo estoy leyendo la reseña.

Why use reseña instead of revisión for 'review'?

In Spanish, reseña specifically means a critique or evaluation of a book, movie, or product. Revisión is a false friend when talking about critiques; it means 'checking,' 'servicing' (like a car), or 'revising' (like a document for errors).

Since the lesson is about the extreme prefix re-, could I say estoy releyendo to mean I am reading it intensely?

No. When attached to verbs like leer, the prefix re- almost always means doing the action again, just like in English. So, estoy releyendo means 'I am re-reading'. The extreme degree re- (meaning 'very') is instead attached to adjectives or adverbs, like rebién (very well) or rebueno (very good).

Why is the spelling leyendo and not leiendo?

When forming the gerund (the equivalent of an English -ing word) of an -er or -ir verb whose stem ends in a vowel (like le- from leer), the unstressed i changes to a y. Spanish spelling rules generally prevent an unstressed i from sitting directly between two vowels.

Does ahora mismo mean something different than just ahora?

Yes, it adds exactness. While ahora can loosely mean 'now' or even 'nowadays,' adding mismo narrows it down to 'right this very second.' It emphasizes that the action is happening at this exact moment.