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
-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
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
- -ing form as a noun or adjective 2
Hello again Parikenan,
This sentence is not correct. It's not clear who the relative pronoun refers to and the structure is not clear and is not natural English.
This sentence is correct grammatically, but it no longer includes any reference to the particular sentence the policeman is saying, so it's more general now.
The second sentence :
Here, you need to change the sentence as follows:
Or in my short sentence,
This is grammatical, but it is more general as it does not tell us how the person understands this, only that they do understand it.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Parikenan,
Sentence 1 is correct and 2 is not. In 1, 'telling how ...' is a participle phrase acting as a reduced relative clause -- it means the same as 'which tell how often ...'. Although our participle clauses page doesn't discuss reduced relative clauses much, it's a similar idea that I think you might find useful.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Parikenan,
They do have the same meaning, but I'd recommend you use the first one because it sounds more natural.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Parikenan,
I'm afraid you can't omit 'that' in this case. This is because the antecedent of 'that' is the subject of the verb 'happened' in the relative clause. In a case like this, the relative pronoun cannot be omitted.
When 'that' is the object of the verb (rather than the subject), then it can usually be omitted. For example: 'Laura likes the book that I got for her' can also be said or written as 'Laura likes the book I got for her' because 'that' is the object of the verb phrase 'I got'.
Does that make sense?
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Parikenan,
It is certainly grammatically possible to use the possessive here, but it is a form which is slowly disappearing from modern English and I think in this context it is quite unlikely to be used.
I don't have any frequency analyis to support this, but my sense is that the possessive form in such constructions is very rare with indefinite pronouns (somebody, anybody etc).
I noted that you reposted your question. Please post questions once only. It may take us a few days to answer as we are a small team here but please be patient. Posting the same question more than once only delays the process as we have to check and delete the repeat post.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Alexandre,
Traditionally, begin to do is used when describing a particular action:
Begin doing is tradionally used with a more general meaning:
However, this distinction is disappearing in modern English. I think most people today use the two forms interchangeably. In your example I don't think there is any difference between them.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Sakura30,
Here the idea is that since Bob's child has been kidnapped, he must have found something significant in the brush. In other words, the kidnapping doesn't make sense if Bob really found nothing in the brush.
So here 'justify somebody kidnapping your child' means something like 'explain why somebody would kidnap your child'.
Does that make sense?
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again Sakura30,
I'm afraid it's difficult for me to say which one is meant without knowing more about the film, but what I understood when I first read it was the first explanation.
I don't get the sense that anyone is justified (in the sense of being right) here. I think 'justify' means something like 'give a reasonable explanation for' in this case. In other words, the kidnappers had a reasonable reason for kidnapping Gibson's child (assuming that they are more concerned about their self-interest than Gibson's or his child's), but this doesn't mean it was justified -- it is, after all, a crime.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello sejal thakur
This means 'to be intended to'. If you look at the third entry (INTEND) for 'mean' in the Cambridge Dictionary (follow the link), you'll see a light blue box with this definition and some example sentences. There's also another explanation on this grammar page.
Best wishes
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello ryuo,
In your examples, there is a big difference in meaning:
visiting parents means people are coming in order to visit their parents. You might say this if the parents are in hospital, for example.
visiting of parents suggests that it is the parents who are doing the visiting. You might say this if the parents have a child in hospital, for example.
More generally, the phrase with of shows a possessive relationship, while in the phrase without of we have a direct object. Which is the better option really depends upon the particular example, the context and the speaker's intention.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Tossa,
The verb watch is an example of a verb of perception. These verbs describe something we see, hear, feel etc. They have three common constructions:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello John Mccan
That is a question that a historical linguist or lexicographer might be able to help you with, but I'm afraid I'm not completely sure. My sense is that the noun 'meaning' is not a gerund because its meaning is far from a verbal noun.
There are many similar words or words that end in 'ing' which do not seem to be derived from verbs -- a few examples are 'acting', 'advertising', 'fundraising', 'evening', 'timing', 'gaming', 'handwriting', and many more.
That's not a very precise explanation, but I hope it helps you.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello cindymaria
That is an '-ing' form used to create a reduced relative clause. It could also be written 'an email that told her that ...' -- 'telling' replaces 'that told'. This is an advanced use that is not explained on this page, but I'm sure you can find more information about it if you do an internet search.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Micicia,
Grammatically, yes. However, it seems a very odd sentence and I cannot think of a context in which you would want or need to say this.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Sep80
Those sentences are not correct in standard British English. Some people might understand your meaning, but I think many might not. I think the simplest way to express your ideas is in the way you have explained them already: 'He analysed it in an interest way', or for the second one you could also say 'He did/said something interesting'.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Jonathan
In this case, 'laughing' is a present participle. It is part of the present continuous verb 'you are laughing', which in a question is 'are you laughing'.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
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
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 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
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