She is resembling her mother

[hirashin]

Hello, native English speakers, I need your help again.
Would both (a) and (b) correct?
(a) She resembles her mother in appearance, but not in personality.
(b) She is resembling her mother in appearance, but not in personality.

Hirashin

 

[Grandpa Frank]

I like (a) , sounds better to me. I'm not positive , but I think you can use ( she's ) because it is short for ( she is ) and does not mean possession in that sentence.

 

[OoTmaster]

I don't think I've ever heard (b). I would certainly use (a), although "in appearance" can be repetitive because resemble implies appearance. It's fine as is but I personally would say something like "She resembles her mother, but her personality is different.".

 

[Majestic]

"A" is correct.
"B" isn't grammatically incorrect, it is just not how a typical North American person would phrase it. The present progressive doesn't sound quite right for this situation.

 

[Edward T.]

Hello, native English speakers, I need your help again.
Would both (a) and (b) correct?
(a) She resembles her mother in appearance, but not in personality.
(b) She is resembling her mother in appearance, but not in personality.

Hirashin

You could also use:
She resembles her mother physically/facially, but not in personality.

 

[johnnyG]

A couple links, which I hope come thru:
Resemble - Definition for English-Language Learners from Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary
resemble verb - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com (click on extra examples)

Resemble is not used as in (b)--using it in the progressive is wrong/ungrammatical.

Resembling is frequently used in negative expressions (note the examples), tho not always.

 

[hirashin]

Thanks for all your help.
Would this sound strange, too?
(c) She is gradually resembling her mother.
Hirashin

 

[Grandpa Frank]

I would say "She is starting to look like her mother."

 

[hirashin]

Thanks for the useful information, Uncle Frank.

 

[johnnyG]

Thanks for all your help.
Would this sound strange, too?
(c) She is gradually resembling her mother.
Hirashin

Resemble is not used as in (b)--using it in the progressive is wrong/ungrammatical.

resemble verb - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com
"not used in the progressive tenses"

 

[nice gaijin]

A less formal but natural phrasing would be "she takes after her mother..."

 

[hirashin]

Thanks for the help, Nice gaijin san.

To johnny G:
One native English speaker says
"He is resembling his father more and more as the years go by."
would be correct. It's from this page:
"Resemble" can't be used in progressive form?

What do you think?

Hirashin

 

[johnnyG]

... One native English speaker says
"He is resembling his father more and more as the years go by."
would be correct. It's from this page:
"Resemble" can't be used in progressive form?
...

Good find! But I still don't think "more and more..." improves it enough to make the "is resembling" acceptable. (E.g., I'd suggest alternatives (alternative wordings) if I rec'd it on a student paper.)

Some other comparable verbs in the same sentence sound better to me than resemble. (add "more and more as the years go by" or something similar to each)

He takes after his father ~
He is taking after his father ~

He looks like his father ~
He is looking like his father ~

For the last pair it seems to sound better if the "more and more" is moved:

He looks more and more like ~
He is looking more and more like ~

***
Some of the examples in your link sound okay:

1. It's looking more and more like it's going to rain.
2. As I read that novel, {I find that} I'm liking it less and less.
3. The mixture [is] smelling sweeter and sweeter as it warms up.

1 and 3 are acceptable. 2 sounds like a modern (millennial?) usage.

You can use google to get a sense of how common a word string is. (hits) Though not all of those hits are in the particular grammatical context at issue here, I think the sheer lack of hits for "is resembling" does reflect how rarely it is used in the progressive, and how much its grammatical usage differs from other verbs/expressions that I might offer as a better phrasing of the same idea.

"is resembling" (46,300)
"is taking" (102,000,000)
"is looking" (208,000,000)
"is smelling" (258,000,000)
"is liking" (416,000)

 

[hirashin]

Thank you very much for your further explanation, johnnyG. Probably we should avoid using the progressive form of "resemble".

Hirashin

 

[johnnyG]

Also, when looking at the extra examples on the Oxford Learner's webpage:

He very much resembles a friend of mine.
I have never seen anything remotely resembling the horrors of that day.
Neither achieved anything resembling their former success.
The house was designed to resemble a church.
The meat resembles chicken in flavour.
a fight for something resembling justice

Note that the italic sentences, that "resembling" is a V+ing form that is an alternative to what I'd call a "that+clause" construction. (Both forms qualify, restrict, or add detail about the preceding NP.) Rewriting those:
...anything that remotely resembles the...
...anything that resembles their former...
...something that resembles justice...

Yes, the italicised examples do use an -ing form of "resemble", but as I'm sure you know, that is quite different than the progressive.