Second post today!

I have been working with the verbs from 1st and 2nd chapter...
And I am so proud of myself!

Google translate is my working dictionary... and it is not the best one available.
So - it gives the translation "are, is, being, been" to both qed and qegħdin.

Now, I KNOW these words have nothing to do with 'to be' (ikun - Maltese verbs' base form is the 3.sg.m. perf.) So... what IS this verb, really?

q-d... q-għ-d... could be. Għ is silent, so in some forms they just skip it.

Maltese Verb Roots and Patterns Database gives this for q-għ-d

qagħad    
1. stay
2. reside
3. be applicable
4. settle
5. amount
6. remain
qagħgħad
qiegħed
1. put, place
2. deposit
3. lay
tqiegħed

Ok... Hmm... Maybe...

Then I found this 

Maltese also has the category of progressive marked by the grammaticalised active participle qiegħed 'staying' (of qagħad 'to stand') - with the inflected forms qiegħda for feminine and qegħdin for plural beside the uninflected reduce qed. 

Kulħadd kien qed jistenna s-sinjal
everybody be (perf) prog (3.sg-m) wait (def) signal
everybody was waiting for the signal.

Thomas Stolz, Cornelia Stroh, Aina Urdze
Total Redulication - The Areal Linguistics of a Potential Universal,
page 311

"are, is, been, being" is not a good translation. "-ing" would be better.

I logged in 12 hours of studies today. I am very pleased with myself. I really need to go through those verbs... As evidenced above :-D