I'm making good progress... & My friends say my pronunciation is much better

Question

Please read below text. Could you say why it's necessary to use "I'm making" & "My friends say" in this context, but not "I make" & "My friends are saying"?

I’m taking the opportunity to improve my English. I make good progress, I think. My friends are saying my pronunciation is much better than I arrived...

I thought that it's necessary to use "I make", because it's a fact or my opinion. --> Present Simple.

I thought that it's necessary to use "My friends are saying", because it's an action around now. --> Present Continuous.

Where are mistakes in my thinking?

Answer 1

“progress” is inherently something that happens over time, so the simple present doesn’t work unless you add something to show it’s continuous:

• I make progress every day.

Without that, you have to use a continuous verb:

• I am making progress.

“saying” has the opposite problem: it is continuous when presumably you mean a series of separate events:

• My friends say ...

The exception to this is when there are so many people saying the same thing that it becomes continuous:

• Everyone is saying ...

Consider the difference between these statements:

• The bird chirps.
• Birds are chirping.