LearnEnglish Hub
In our new Learning hub, you can put your language into practice. Take part in the activities and practise your English skills by writing comments, recording yourself speaking and sharing photos with descriptions.
Look at these examples to see how participle clauses are used.
Looked after carefully, these boots will last for many years.
Not wanting to hurt his feelings, I avoided the question.
Having lived through difficult times together, they were very close friends.
Try this exercise to test your grammar.
Read the explanation to learn more.
Participle clauses enable us to say information in a more economical way. They are formed using present participles (going, reading, seeing, walking, etc.), past participles (gone, read, seen, walked, etc.) or perfect participles (having gone, having read, having seen, having walked, etc.).
We can use participle clauses when the participle and the verb in the main clause have the same subject. For example,
Waiting for Ellie, I made some tea. (While I was waiting for Ellie, I made some tea.)
Participle clauses do not have a specific tense. The tense is indicated by the verb in the main clause.
Participle clauses are mainly used in written texts, particularly in a literary, academic or journalistic style.
Here are some common ways we use present participle clauses. Note that present participles have a similar meaning to active verbs.
Here are some common ways that we use past participle clauses. Note that past participles normally have a passive meaning.
Perfect participle clauses show that the action they describe was finished before the action in the main clause. Perfect participles can be structured to make an active or passive meaning.
Having got dressed, he slowly went downstairs.
Having finished their training, they will be fully qualified doctors.
Having been made redundant, she started looking for a new job.
It is also common for participle clauses, especially with -ing, to follow conjunctions and prepositions such as before, after, instead of, on, since, when, while and in spite of.
Before cooking, you should wash your hands.
Instead of complaining about it, they should try doing something positive.
On arriving at the hotel, he went to get changed.
While packing her things, she thought about the last two years.
In spite of having read the instructions twice, I still couldn’t understand how to use it.
Do this exercise to test your grammar again.
Hello Kapil Kabir,
1 is correct and 2 is not. Instead of 1, you could also say 'Some students are gone' (which means the same thing). You can read an explanation of this in the Members of groups section of our Quantifiers page.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Ahmed Imam,
The sentence needs a correction: Someone knocked at the door while I was having my breakfast.
The two actions are done by different people. The sentence structure is: Someone X while Y (X and Y are the two actions). Since the first word is Someone, and no other person is mentioned, it would be understood that Someone does both X and Y. But this is not the right meaning. It must be me who is having my breakfast.
Does that make sense?
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Kapil Kabir,
Good question. Only the first option is correct. In this situation, the man owns the shop. For the meaning of owning or possessing something, we usually use the possessive ('s), especially when the noun is a living thing. So, a man's shop is correct and a shop of the man isn't correct.
The second one is also missing a determiner before man, as you said.
Does that make sense?
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Kapil Kabir,
In a man's shop, the article a describes man (not shop), so man has an article. It would be reworded as the shop of a man (not a shop of the man).
In other words, shop is definite (since it is described by a man's), and man is indefinite (not the other way round). Before shop, the phrase a man's functions as a determiner, so no other article/determiner is needed before shop.
(As mentioned above, though, for the meaning of possession, we would usually use 's. If we change the example to a non-living thing, it might be clearer, e.g.: the front of the building, a page of the book, the roof of the house.)
I hope that helps.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team