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Tell me please which tense I have to use in the following sentence.

I don't like it when you are sticking out/you stick out your tongue.

I sometimes hear natives use the present continuous, even though the people weren't doing a certain action.

2 Answers 2

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Neither sentence is formed idiomatically, but (if rephrased) either tense is fine.

I don't like it when you are sticking out your tongue.

This means you don't like it when I am in engaged in the activity of sticking out my tongue. For instance, possibly it makes my face look strange.

I don't like it when you stick out your tongue.

This means you don't like it when I do stick out my tongue. It's not talking about the process as I'm in the middle of it necessarily, just the overall action itself. For instance, you might think it's rude.

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Personally, I'd go with present simple. I'd also add an it:

I don't like it when you do that.

The present continuous sounds fine, I just wouldn't use it here.

I don't like it when you are doing that.

It seems like it puts a lot of emphasis on the instances themselves.

I don't, however, know what you mean by "stick your tongue". Did you mean "stick your tongue out"?

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