Is there such a thing as progressive in German? Basing its arguments on the evaluation of various corpora, the study discusses potentially progressive constructions (am/beim/im V sein, dabei sein zu V) and the so-called absentive (e.g. schwimmen sein) and contrasts them with Dutch on the one hand and English on the other. With the exception of the absentive, all these constructions can be regarded as representatives of the progressive category, especially the most strongly grammaticalized form with am. However, they fulfill partly different functions.