Hey,
it's Annemarie with Speak Confident English and I'm so exciting because I... no,
sorry, I think... I'm so excited because tomorrow night I'm going to a concert.
Now, I'm so exciting or I'm so excited?
Do you know which one of those is correct or do you ever feel frustrated or
confused about when to use boring or bored,
relaxing or relaxed, thrilling or thrilled?
In English, we have a long list of these confusing word pairs.
They're adjectives that can end with an ing or an ed,
and if you're not sure which one to use today, I've got a quick,
easy fix for you so that you can use these correctly every time you speak in
English.
Then at the end I've got an opportunity for you to immediately practice this
quick trick so that you can make sure you understand it and know how to do it
correctly.
Let's start with adjectives that use the ing ending, words like:
exciting, relaxing, interesting, annoying,
embarrassing, or even confusing.
All of these ing adjectives describe what something is like;
it's quality or characteristic. As a result,
most of the time when we use the ing ending,
we use it with the pronoun it. For example,
I don't want to watch this movie because it's boring.
I love going to the beach because it's so relaxing.
Or last night my neighbors were blaring their music.
It was so annoying.
Blaring is when the volume of something is really loud.
So when we're talking about things like music,
the beach, a movie, or even a situation at work,
we use the ing form. Now, similar to talking about things,
we can also use the ing form to talk about people.
When we are describing what they're like. Again,
it's all about their qualities or characteristics. For example,
you might have a colleague at work who is annoying or maybe you have a friend
who's entertaining. She always makes you laugh.
If you have a child who always gets you to say yes when you should say no - for
example, if they want chocolate cake for dinner,
if they get you to say yes - you might say, my daughter is really convincing.
In all of those examples, again, I'm describing what someone is like,
their characteristics. But now let's switch a little bit.
Remember that example sentence where I said last night my neighbors were blaring
music and it was annoying.
If your neighbors are blaring their music all night long and you can't sleep,
how would you feel? When we're talking about how someone feels,
then we switch to the ed form.
So if your neighbors are partying all night long and you can't sleep,
you would probably feel tired, not tiring.
You would feel frustrated, not frustrating,
and of course you might feel annoyed.
And that is the key difference between using the ing ending and the ed ending of
those confusing adjective pairs.
If you're talking about how you or someone else feels,
then we use that ed form.
But if we're talking about the quality or characteristic of something or
someone, then we use the ing.
Now because we use those ed adjectives to talk about how someone feels,
we really only use them with people.
And let's be honest,
sometimes we imagine how animals might feel.
The truth is we don't really know how animals feel.
But if you're a dog person like me and you have a dog in your family,
you might think that sometimes your dog is annoyed with you.
Or if you've got a cat,
maybe you think your cat is sometimes frustrated with you.
So we can definitely use those ed adjectives like frustrated,
tired, relaxed,
thrilled with people and with animals.
But we can't use them with things. For example,
a movie doesn't have feelings.
So we can't say that a movie is frustrated. It doesn't feel,
but it can have a quality or characteristic that is frustrating and it makes you
feel frustrated. In other words,
those ing adjectives cause those ed feelings.
So if you can remember this simple sentence structure,
it will help you get this right, every time.
It was boring so I feel bored.
It was exciting so I feel excited.
It was tiring so I feel tired.
Now you might be wondering,
does it really matter if you mix up these adjectives?
The truth is those little mistakes are obvious mistakes to native speakers.
And there are some times where mixing up those two adjectives can cause some
real confusion. For example,
remember we said that using the ing form talks about somebody's quality.
So if you say, I'm really annoying,
that means you make other people feel annoyed.
And I don't know if that's that you want to say.
A similar example would be if you said something like, I'm really insulting.
Maybe what you wanted to say is that you felt insulted.
Someone said something rude or offensive to you. But if you say,
I'm really insulting,
it means that you often say or do things that are rude or offensive to other
people.
So those are situations when we want to be really careful about making the right
choice. So let's test your knowledge. In this example,
which adjective do you think is correct?
Hopefully you chose that hike was exhausting and as a result,
how do you feel? You might feel exhausted.
Let's try another one. How about in this example?
Which adjective would you choose?
Hopefully you chose, I feel so relaxed after my two week vacation.
Now the truth is,
the best way to get this quick fix into your mind is to practice it.
And I've got a couple of ways for you to do that. Number one,
I have more example questions that you can find in my online lesson to get some
additional practice and I'll leave a link to that just below this video.
And number two, as you can see,
we have a really long list of these adjective pairs in English.
I'm going to leave the full list down below this video and in my online lesson,
I want you to choose a couple of word pairs and use them in your own example
sentences. Then share those examples with me,
and you can do that just below this video. Now,
if you found this lesson useful to you,
be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to this channel so you never miss a
future lesson.
I've also got a playlist for you with other examples of quick grammar fixes to
help you with some of the most challenging parts of English. And with that,
thank you so much for joining me.
Have a fantastic week and I look forward to seeing you next time.