'-ing' forms

Level: beginner

We can use the -ing form of a verb:

as a noun:

I love swimming.
Swimming is very good for your health.
You can get fit by swimming regularly.

as an adjective:

The main problem today is rising prices.
That programme was really boring.
He saw a woman lying on the floor.

-ing forms as nouns

-ing nouns are nearly always uncount nouns. They can be used:

as the subject of a verb:

Learning English is not easy.

as the object of a verb:

We enjoy learning English.

Common verbs followed by an -ing object are:

admit like hate start avoid
suggest enjoy dislike begin finish

as the object of a preposition :

Some people are not interested in learning English.

-ing form as a noun: ReorderingHorizontal_MTY0Mzg=

-ing forms as adjectives

The -ing adjective can come:

in front of a noun:

I read an interesting article in the newspaper today.
We saw a really exciting match on Sunday.

after a link verb like be, look or sound:

Your new book sounds very interesting.
The children can be really annoying.

after a noun:

Who is that man standing over there?
The boy talking to Angela is her younger brother

especially after verbs of the senses like see, watch, hear, smell, etc.:

I heard someone playing the piano.
I can smell something burning.

The commonest -ing adjectives are:

amusing
boring
disappointing

interesting
surprising
tiring

worrying
exciting
frightening

shocking
terrifying
annoying

-ing form as an adjective: ReorderingHorizontal_MTY0Mzk=

**Patterns with -ing forms**

Because an -ing noun or adjective is formed from a verb, it can have any of the patterns which follow a verb. For example:

it can have an object:

I like playing tennis.
I saw a dog chasing a cat.

it can be followed by a clause:

I heard someone saying that he saw you.

-ing form as a noun or adjective 1: GapFillDragAndDrop_MTY0NDA=
-ing form as a noun or adjective 2: GapFillTyping_MTY0NDE=

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Hi,Sir. Could you tell me the difference between these two sentences 1. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo. 2. Amelia Eahart became the first woman flying solo. From the sentence, which one is the more appropriate, using to fly or flying? Thank you.

Hi Risa warysha,

The correct form here is 'to fly'.

We can use verb-ing in this kind of sentence to explain how a person achieved something. For example:

John earned a lot of money acting in science-fiction films.

Here, 'acting in science fiction films' explains how John earned a lot of money.

Your second sentence would mean that flying solo was how Amelia Earhart became the first woman, which obviously does not make sense. There were a lof women before Amelia Earhart!

You can read more about this structure on this page:

Participle clauses

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Thank you very much,sir

In the sentence "he started practising ahimsa" .Here we know that ahimsa is a noun.Please clarify whether practising is noun or adjective?

Hello Surigi Jhansee In this case, 'practising' is a gerund, i.e. the noun form of the verb 'practise'. Since the gerund is a kind of verb form, it can have an object (here, it is 'ahimsa'). It might be useful to point out that in British English, 'practise' is a verb and 'practice' is a noun. In American English, both forms are spelled with a 'c', i.e. 'practice' is the spelling for both verbs and nouns. All the best Kirk The LearnEnglish Team

I Learnt That Verbal Adjectives Make Use Of The Past Participle Or Present Participle Of A Verb, In Sentences. When Should Know When To Use The Present Or Past Participle In Sentences. For Example: (1) Her Crying Attitude Appauls Me. Why Not The Past Participle "Cried". (2) To Live In The Days Of Fallen Heroes Are Unbearable. Why Not The Present Participle "Falling". (Though Out Of Context, Am I Supposed To Put A Period After A Quotation Mark?)

Hello CIJO,

You can find a general explanation of this on our Adjectives with -ing and -ed page, though it also depends on the specific adjective you are using.

Please note that not all present participles and past participles are used as adjectives, and sometimes they have a meaning that is different from the meaning of the verb. For example, 'crying' means 'needing urgent attention'. I would probably say something like 'her whiny attitude' instead.

'fallen heroes' is correct. 'falling' would have a present meaning and 'fallen' has a past meaning, which is appropriate here.

Where exactly a full stop is put after a quotation is a matter of style, i.e. sometimes it is put inside and other times outside.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello team, You have a good, useful site here. But I think you need to expand on this section here. I'm a native English speaker and I think this must be one of the most difficult parts of English grammar. For example, grammatically speaking, there's no such thing as "-ing verb form". It's either a gerund or a present participle. And to confuse matters even more, it can be a pure adjective or a pure noun. For example: "Shouting loudly is rude". (shouting here is a gerund, "shouting loudly" acting as a noun and the subject). "I saw a man shouting at the store clerk" (shouting here is a present participle, acting as an adjective modifying "a man") "Loud shouting is not good manners (shouting here is a pure noun, modified by an adjective, correct?) "The shouting match lasted for half an hour". (shouting here is a pure adjective?) And what about "it was a very exciting game". Is "exciting" a pure adjective here or a present participle? I was under the impression that if we take the present participle of many/most verbs, they become an adjective by themselves (i.e. "to excite"-->"exciting"). Thank you in advance for any feedback.

Hello sunsetlover,

Thanks for your comment. We are in the process of revising the English grammar section and hope to be able to publish the new version in the next few months. So please keep your eye out for this update.

This section, as well as the revised version we are working on, were written to serve as a general reference on what its writer (Dave Willis) considered to be the most essential English grammar for learners. It is not intended to be comprehensive and, as you've noted, doesn't always use technical terms which he did not consider essential to learning to use the language (as opposed to describing it or parsing it for more specialist use).

As for your questions, we don't normally go into this level of detail but I'll tell you what I think. I agree with your first three statements. As for the fourth, I'm honestly not sure, though I'd probably say that it's a gerund being used adjectivally, i.e. as a sort of noun + noun combination with 'match'. Finally, I'd say 'exciting' is a pure adjective in this case.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Sir, I didn't get reply for this one. Please respond to this query. Thanking you in advance. 'Reasonably good research exists about the muslim bourgeoisie anchoring the league.' 'Surely, it was not the first time the state has been brought to its knees by rampaging zealots.' Sir, why was comma not used after 'reasonably', while it was used after 'surely'? Does it make any difference if we put or don't put comma after these adverbs? Does the meaning change if we remove the comma after 'surely'? Sir, please enlighten us about this.

Hello ali shah,

In these sentences, 'surely' is a sentence adverb, i.e. an adverbial that expresses the speaker's attitude to or view of what is said. Commas are used after sentence adverbs when they are in initial position, as is the case here.

'Reasonably' is not a sentence adverb here (nor is it commonly used as one). Here it modifies the adjective 'good'.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello, As long as I know "go running" is described as an activity. But in the sentence "I went running towards him" "running" modifies the verb "went".Because that is the answer of "how" question. Am I okay? Thank you.

Hello Goktug123,

Grammarians differ on whether to classify the verb-ing form after 'go' as a participle (modifying the verb) or a gerund (as the object of the verb). There are good arguments on both sides.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello again Peter,thanks for response. Is the meaning same for both cases? Thank you.

Hello Goktung123,

The question is not really one of meaning but of terminology. In your example I would say that 'running' is clearly a participle, as you say, and gives us information about the verb. In examples like 'go swimming', 'go jogging' and so on, there is some discussion over whether to best call the -ing form a gerund or a participle, but there is no disagreement on the meaning in either case.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

'Reasonably good research exists about the muslim bourgeoisie abchoring the league.' 'Surely, it was not the first time the state has been brought to its knees by rampaging zealots.' Sir, why was comma not used after 'reasonably', while it was used after 'surely'? Does it make any difference if we put or don't put comma after these adverbs? Does the meaning change if we remove the comma after 'surely'? Sir, please enlighten us about this.

1."In the midterm election process, the Democrats pursued a more coherent and strategic campaign, focusing on ‘table’ issues, such as healthcare, and largely avoiding the fractious debates unleashed by Trump on immigration, race and religion." Sir, which structure or grammar rule do these -ing verbs( focusing, avoiding) follow? can we use 'focused', 'avoided' instead of the -ing form of words? Does that change meaning if use -ed forms?I'm baffled 2.'With the population having swollen to 207m and expected to increase to 395m by 2047, the demand for clean water and proper sanitation will keep rising. ' 3.'Surely, the policy of appeasement does not seem to be working as the situation remains volatile with the Hamass not backing down.' Similarly, which structure or grammar rule does the first clause(starting with 'with') in 2 and the last part phrase(with the Hamass not backing down) in the 3 follow?

Hi ali shah,

These are all participle clauses. In 1, they act as adverbial clauses by giving more specific information about how the democrats pursued a more strategic campaign. How did they do it? By focusing of table issues and by avoiding the other, more fractious issues. Note that here, the subject of the main clause ('democrats') is the same subject of the verbs in the participle clauses. It is not possible to change 'focusing' and 'avoiding' to past participles here ('focused' and 'avoided') as that would give the participles a passive meaning; here an active meaning is intended.

The subject of the participles 'having swollen' and '[being] expected' in 2 is 'the population', which is a different subject than the subject of the main clause (which is 'the demand for ...'). This is why 'with' is used to begin the clause. (Note that the present participle 'being' was omitted through ellipsis in the second verb.) The clause in 3 begins with 'with' for the same reason.

I hope that helps you make sense of them!

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

"Since the restoration of judges under the PPP government, it was thought that independent courts would safeguard citizen rights and also protect democracy." My question is: Can 'since' be used for time in the above strucuture(the past indefinite passive) as we are taught we use 'since' (for time) in Present Perfect Tense and Present Perfect Continuous Tense? For instance, He has been sleeping since yesterday's night.

Hello again ali shah,

I don't know what the writer of that sentence meant to say, but as I understand it, 'since' refers to time in that sentence. It specifies a point in time that marks the beginning of a change. It is often used in the same way with the present perfect simple and continuous, but can also be used with other tenses. Please see some examples under Since and tenses on this page.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

''Since the restoration of judges under the Congress government, it was thought that independent courts would safeguard citizen rights and also protect democracy.'' Is it okay to use 'since' in the above structure as we use 'since' in the Present Perfect and Perfect Continuous tense, and instead of 'because' etc?

Hello ali shah,

'since' has several meanings. One speaks about reason (similar to 'because of') and the other about time. In this case, 'since' speaks about time and so replacing it with 'because' would change the meaning.

Does that make sense?

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello Sir Please let me know whether I have understood the difference between 'going to' and verb plus ing correctly. e.g. I am going to buy a car soon. I am buying a car soon. The first is my intention, a plan or an idea. I might not do it. The second is I have organised it. I have seen the car and I have paid an advance, too. Very soon I will pay the balance and buy it. If I am wrong please let me know the right way of using these forms. Thank you. Regards Lal

Hello Lal,

I think that is a good summary. Going to describes an intention, while be + verbing (the present continuous) is used for things that we consider to be already in progress.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello! I would like to ask why do we use 'need convincing' here. I know the verb need should be followed by an infinitive. Is this something different? If you are a dog lover, you won't need convincing that dogs are intelligent beings with thoughts.

Hi Sash,

In British English, a verb in the -ing form is routinely used after the verb 'need' to communicate a passive meaning. See the dictionary entry (follow the link) for a definition and examples of this. In this case, you could rephrase it as 'you won't need to be convinced that' or 'we won't need to convince you that'.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello everyone! I have a question about "ing forms" after prepositions. Do we use "ing" after any preposition? Which sentence below is grammatically correct? 1)- I am too young to understand. 2)- I am too young for understanding. Thanks a lot!

Hello acorreia,

Yes, any verb that comes after a preposition is put in the -ing form. Of the two sentences you ask about, 1 is correct. Many adjectives (like 'young') can be used in this way, i.e. Subject + BE + adjective + infinitive.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello. In a sentence like: "He was busy doing his homework." What type of clause is "doing his homework" ? Thanks in advance.

Hello Nonawyy,

This is an example of a participle clause, sometimes also called a participle phrase. We have a page on this construction which you can find here.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Can you please share the link of this construction sentences ? busy doing something
fun spending time with someone .
be verbs / adjectives / verbing .Thanks

Hello checheA,

As far as I know, there is no special grammar here. Rather, these two phrases -- 'to be busy' and 'to have fun' -- can be followed by a phrase with an '-ing' form to give more information. Just as we can say 'to be busy with something', we can say 'to be busy doing something'. Similarly, just as we can say 'to have fun at a location' or 'to have fun with someone', we can say 'to have fun doing something'.

There are many other phrases that can be followed by the same kind of '-ing' phrases. I'm afraid I can't think of any off the top of my head, and I haven't found any other examples in a quick internet search, but I expect you can find others in your reading and listening.

I hope this helps you.

All the best,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team

‘Something flying in the sky hit him’ is ‘flying’ used as an adjective after a noun in this sentence? Can I say ‘something was flying in the sky and hit him’

Hi libero,

In this sentence, 'flying' is a present participle used to make a reduced relative clause. As you suggest, it is a reduced form of 'Something that was flying in the sky hit him'. Good work!

You can see an explanation of this on our defining relative clauses page -- look for the last example sentence on the page, just above the exercise.

Best regards,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hi! I would like to ask you about the use of prepositions at the end of the sentences. I have been taught that each and every preposition of phrasal or prepositional verbs should appear in the sentence, even at the end. Is that still correct, given that I have read some texts in which the sentences do not end with the required preposition. Thank you

Hi Sonia,

In general, yes, you should use the particle or preposition of phrasal or prepositional verbs. It's difficult to generalise about this; if there's a specific sentence you'd like to ask us about, feel free to do so.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

HI! I would like to ask you a question on the possessive "whose" for introducing relatives clauses. At college, I was taught to use the possessive "whose" for animate entities and "which" for inanimate entities. However, I also know that "which" is also accepted to indicate possession of animate entities, is that correct? Or do you prefer to keep the distinction between them? Thank you

Hi SONIAL03,

The rule of whose for animate entities and which for inanimate is a good rule of thumb, but you are correct that which can be used in certain cases. This is actually a relict of how English used to be used several hundred years ago. Today it is very uncommon and generally considered a non-standard form, I would say. You can see which used in place of collective nouns describing people: the group (of people) which I saw or the class (of students) which I taught.

If you have any particular example in mind then we will be happy to comment on it, of course.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Good morning, I have a doubt regarding the use of the Saxon genitive in the following expression: “Taiwanese colleague clients”: would it be right to say “Taiwanese colleagues’ clients” or would it be better to use the “of” form-Clients of our Taiwanese colleagues? Thank you, Sonia

Hello SONIAL03,

I think both forms are possible:

our Taiwanese colleagues' clients

the clients of our Taiwanese colleagues

Which you choose is really a question of style. The second may be easier to understand and be less likely to be misunderstood but both are perfectly correct.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello dear brirtish council leraning English. I need your help to learn "infinitive and gerund,i feel confused about them ,can you give me some advice that i find easy way to learn them... Best regards Ali.

Hello Ali boroki,

The infinitive is a verb form which is used in a number of ways. You can read about them and see examples on this page and this page.

The gerund is a verb formed with -ing used as a noun in the sentence. You can read more about these on this page and on the page we are on here.

You can also use the search facility to look up 'infinitive' and 'gerund' to find relevant pages. If you have any questions about particular examples then we will be happy to explain, of course.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello sir, in the following sentence does 'watching' act as a noun and 'soothing' as an adjective (soothing sunset) or should soothing be considered a part of the finite verb is? Thus , 'watching' as nonfinite(gerund) and 'is soothing' as finite. •Watching the sun set at the beach is soothing to eyes. Thank you.

Hi amrita,

Yes, 'watching' is a gerund (a noun derived from a verb) and 'soothing' is an adjective. The structure of the sentence is a simple copula: 'X is Y'.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Sir , in the following sentence , can you please tell me if 'hurt' and 'ill-fated' are both Non finite ( past participles ) ? The hurt passengers of the ill-fated train were admitted to the nearby hospital .

Hello amrita_enakshi,

The words have the form of past participles but are functioning as adjectives in the sentence.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

thank you sir

Hi I am really confused about "ing" form when it is used as a gerund or as a verbal noun or as an adjective in a sentence. I want an article to separate these and help me. For example in this: "Game changing delivery" (why not game change delivery or changing game delivery) what is the structure and meaning(or maybe mean) of every word in the sentence above especially "ing: ? Where do we use verbal nouns in a sentence and what is used before and after that(ex:adjective or noun)? There are a lot of phrase in ing forms and I am really not know about the structure of ing form so I am really confused. Thanks in advance.

Hi mehransam05,

The phrase 'game-changing delivery' (it is usually hypenated) has a compound adjective (game-changing) modifying a noun (delivery).

English is a very flexible language and a word fulfil many different roles in the sentence. To identify which role an ing-form has you need to look at the sentence in which it is used. This is why we provide the examples on this page. If the ing-form is the subject or object in the sentence then it is acting as a noun. If it describes a noun then it is acting as an adjective.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hi Team Could you please tell me what the -ing forms 'learning' and 'knowing' function as in the following sentence: Her parents said that learning English meant she would be able to make friends with people all over the world, and knowing Spanish meant that she could talk to grandma Garcia, who could not speak English. Would it be correct to say they are gerunds? Thanks for your help, Lexeus

admit	like	hate	start	avoid
suggest	enjoy	dislike	begin	finish