Why are there no progressive tenses in German?

The sentences “I eat” and “I am eating” are the same in German: “Ich esse.”  For speakers of the English language, this may be confusing. In fact, if someone says “Ich esse Fisch,” do they mean “I eat fish” or “I am eating fish”? But in practice, you can basically always figure out the speaker’s meaning from context.

For example, if you are going into the cafeteria and your friend says “Heute esse ich Fisch,” then he or she added the heute (“today”), which shows that it is just a one-time thing, not a frequent action. Likewise, if someone who has invited you to dinner asks you, “Isst du Fisch?” then you can be sure that they’re asking if you generally eat fish, since they are probably planning to serve fish.