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(1) I don't follow.

(2) I'm not following.

I know the meaning of these 2 sentences. But I don't know what the difference is between them. Is that the second sentence puts more emphasis on the ongoing nature of the action of not understanding what the other is saying?

The context is like this:

My friend is angry about her husband, and she is saying a lot of thing to me. I can't catch up and understand what she is saying. Which sentence should I use ?

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    Native speakers would rarely use the continuous in such contexts, but speakers of non-standard "Indian English" would, so you might want to avoid it purely for that reason. Occasionally, a native Anglophone might use the continuous here to emphasize the ongoing lack of comprehension - I haven't understood what you've been saying for a while (it's not just a problem with the last sentence you uttered). So it's not inherently "wrong", but my advice is avoid continuous here.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Apr 24, 2023 at 10:44
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    Does this answer your question? Use of the word "understanding"
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Apr 24, 2023 at 10:47
  • Follow is normally transitive. "I can't follow what you're saying" would be most natural. "I don't follow you" is possible but typically means "I don't understand your reasoning". "I'm not following you" suggests it's at the present moment (e.g. when interrupting) rather than after listening to something. It's rather idiomatic, and probably better to be more explicit e.g. "Could you speak more slowly please?"
    – Stuart F
    Commented Sep 19 at 11:14

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If it’s a matter of the other person’s speaking too fast, I don’t think that it would be expressed as a question of following. For me, either of those would be used in contexts in which all of the individual words—and maybe the sentences too—are clear, and it’s the speaker’s overall meaning that is not.

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