Adjectives ending in '-ed' and '-ing'

Do you know the difference between bored and boring? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.

Look at these examples to see how adjectives ending in -ed and -ing are used.

I was really bored in that presentation.
That was a really boring presentation.

Try this exercise to test your grammar.

Grammar test 1: Grammar test 1: Adjectives ending in '-ed' and '-ing'

Read the explanation to learn more.

Grammar explanation

Adjectives that end in -ed (e.g. bored, interested) and adjectives that end in -ing (e.g. boring, interesting) are often confused.

-ed adjectives

Adjectives that end in -ed generally describe emotions – they tell us how people feel.

I was so bored in that lesson, I almost fell asleep.
He was surprised to see Helen after all those years.
She was really tired and went to bed early.

-ing adjectives

Adjectives that end in -ing generally describe the thing that causes the emotion – a boring lesson makes you feel bored.

Have you seen that film? It's really frightening.
I could listen to her for hours. She's so interesting.
I can't sleep! That noise is really annoying!

Here are some adjectives that can have both an -ed and an -ing form.

annoyed	annoying
bored	boring
confused	confusing
disappointed	disappointing
excited	exciting
frightened	frightening
interested	interesting
surprised	surprising
tired	tiring
worried	worrying

Do this exercise to test your grammar again.

Grammar test 2: Grammar test 2: Adjectives ending in '-ed' and '-ing'

Try another grammar lesson

Language level

A1 Elementary

A2 Pre-intermediate

Do you need to improve your English grammar?

Join thousands of learners from around the world who are improving their English grammar with our online courses.

Find out more

this is very interesting topic , i was confused before , but now it's crystal clear , thank you very much

this subject was not boring and i was not bored this subject was interesting and i was interested this subject was not confusing and i was not confused, thank you very much

These exercises were interesting and exciting! I was not bored!

Hi!!! I am very surprised about this page. It's realy good to study English. Learn a new language is very exciting!

I don't remember when I read the rule, but there writed (ing) use with not animated and (ed) use with alive somebody example like a man or an animal.

Hello SergeySSSS,

That doesn't sound correct to me. Perhaps you can post an example of what you mean and we'll be happy to comment on it.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Really I didn’t understand why the next sentence uses interesting instead of interested: “I could listen to her for hours. She’s so interesting."

Hello solguzman,

We use adjectives ending in -ing to describe the quality of a thing; we use adjectives ending in -ed to describe our reaction to something.

Thus, a film can be interesting and I can be interested when I watch it.

In your example the woman is interesting (her quality). When I listen to her, I am interested (how I react/feel).