Look at these examples to see how stative verbs are used.
I think that's a good idea.
I love this song!
That coffee smells good.
Do you have a pen?
Try this exercise to test your grammar.
- Grammar test 1
Read the explanation to learn more.
Grammar explanation
Stative verbs describe a state rather than an action. They aren't usually used in the present continuous form.
I don't know the answer.
I'm not knowing the answer.
She really likes you.She's really liking you.
He seems happy at the moment.He's seeming happy at the moment.
Stative verbs often relate to:
- thoughts and opinions: agree, believe, doubt, guess, imagine, know, mean, recognise, remember, suspect, think, understand
- feelings and emotions: dislike, hate, like, love, prefer, want, wish
- senses and perceptions: appear, be, feel, hear, look, see, seem, smell, taste
- possession and measurement: belong, have, measure, own, possess, weigh.
Verbs that are sometimes stative
A number of verbs can refer to states or actions, depending on the context.
I think it's a good idea.
Wait a moment! I'm thinking.
The first sentence expresses an opinion. It is a mental state, so we use present simple. In the second example the speaker is actively processing thoughts about something. It is an action in progress, so we use present continuous.
Some other examples are:
have
I have an old car. (state – possession)
I'm having a quick break. (action – having a break is an activity)
see
Do you see any problems with that? (state – opinion)
We're seeing Tadanari tomorrow afternoon. (action – we're meeting him)
be
He's so interesting! (state – his permanent quality)
He's being very unhelpful. (action – he is temporarily behaving this way)
taste
This coffee tastes delicious. (state – our perception of the coffee)
Look! The chef is tasting the soup. (action – tasting the soup is an activity)
Other verbs like this include: agree, appear, doubt, feel, guess, hear, imagine, look, measure, remember, smell, weigh, wish.
Do this exercise to test your grammar again.
- Grammar test 2
Hello Rsb,
Die is not a stative verb, but it is intransitive. Any good dictionary entry should indicate if a verb is transitive or intransitive.
Love is transitive and stative in your example.
I don't know if there is an ergative stative verb. We're happy to provide help with explanations but I don't have a list of all ergative verbs to cross-check against stative verbs.
You can find some more information on ergative verbs here:
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-grammar-reference/ergative-verbs
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again Rsb,
Die is not a stative verb as it can be used with continuous aspect: He's dying, so you should speak to him soon.
Conceptually, dying can be a process rather than a single momentary event.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
Look has more than one meaning. When it is used to describe a person's physical appearance it is a stative verb, as your example shows. When it is used to mean something you do with your eyes it is a dynamic verb.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
Yes, that is possible. We can use the continuous form here to show that something is temporary rather than generally true. For example, you might say this if a person has dressed in a particular way for a special occasion. You would not use it for a general description of how someone normally looks.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again Rsb,
When a state can be perceived as having continuity and progress over time then the progressive form is possible. There are quite a few examples of this:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
Action verbs can have subjects that are inanimate. I'm afraid I don't know of any explanation of this anywhere, but it's quite straightforward -- there is no such limitation.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
Holiday wishes are not usually complete sentences. Typically, they are reduced forms from which different words have been omitted.
I'd understand 'wishing' in the first one as a reduction of 'I wish' or 'With this card, I wish'. You could say 'will be' instead of 'to be'.
Your other example sounds like the title of an article. If it were a complete sentence, it would need 'are' (as you suggest). The same is true of the last sentence -- the word 'is' is missing (if it's supposed to be a complete sentence).
Please remember that we're happy to help with isolated examples from other texts if they're directly related to the grammar or content of a page, but we don't have the resources to explain every example that you may find.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
These sentences are indeed complete sentences. They are not holiday wishes -- I was speaking about phrases such as 'Happy New Year' (a holiday wish).
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
Yes, 'pressed' and 'ironed' are adjectives in the sentences you mention. I'm not familiar with 'ironized'.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
I'd say that's the past participle in a passive construction. You could also say 'was answered', which means the same thing.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
In an informal style, 'get' is sometimes used in the place of 'be' in passive forms (see the Intermediate level on the page linked to).
If, for example, the original sentence were 'The call was answered immediately', one possible active voice version of it would be 'He answered the call immediately' (I don't know who actually answered the call, so 'he' could change to another person).
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
It shows possibility.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
It could be either. The sentence is inherently ambiguous and both descriptions fit it perfectly well.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Rsb,
No, that's not quite right. Wearing is not acting as an adjective. It's a verb here.
It's true that the auxiliary verb is (and other forms of be) can introduce an adjective (e.g. He is happy). But that's not its only meaning and function. It also forms part of continuous verb forms. Here, it's part of the present continuous (He is wearing).
Yes, worn can function as an adjective (because it's the past participle form). But, is worn is a passive structure (be + past participle), so the subject needs to be the thing that is worn, not the person who wears it.
Does that make sense?
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Rsb,
OK, I can see what you mean! But, I still recommend interpreting wearing as a verb, not an adjective. That's because it doesn't fully behave as an adjective, from a structural point of view.
Some -ing verbs do behave fully as adjectives. For example:
Caring is an adjective in these examples because it can be put before the noun it describes (e.g. a caring man), and it can be used with other copular verbs instead of be (e.g. 'seems' in He seems caring). Wearing can't be used in these two ways.
Another reason is that only a verb (not an adjective) can link to an object.
As wearing has an object here (a white shirt), I recommend interpreting it as a verb.
Sorry for the rather dry and technical explanation – but I hope it helps :)
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Risa warysha,
'I still don't find one' is not correct in that situation -- as you suggest, you should say 'I still haven't found one' instead.
I expect there are other stative verbs. I'm afraid I don't know of an exhaustive list anywhere that I could refer you to.
I wouldn't say that 'find' is a stative verb. I'm not sure if it will help you, but you might be interested in reading about Dowty's analysis, which 'find' fails.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
No, that's not correct. We would say 'He has a stammer'.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Westnur,
Yes! This is a type of vocative phrase (a phrase that addresses the reader/listener directly). The structure you pointed out is very common for this usage. Other examples include you liar, you fool or you star. As you can see, this structure is often used with negative descriptions.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
You are confusing transitive/intransitive, which refers to whether or not a verb has an object, with dynamic/stative, which deals with whether a verb describes an action or a state.
Ergative (or labile) verbs can be transitive or intransitive. Separate is an ergative verb.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again Rsb,
A stative verb describes a state of being which is constant and does not change through its duration.
An action or dynamic verb describes an action or a process which changes over time.
These definitions are related to meaning but are useful because they have grammatical implications, such as state verbs not being used with continuous aspect.
This is not the same as transitive (has an object) and intranstive (no object). Both stative and dynamic verbs can be transitive or intransitive.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Rsb,
In this context separate is intransitive but dynamic. You could use a continuous form, for example, which would not be possible with a stative verb:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team