Bored or Boring? Learn about -ED and -ING adjectives in English

Hi. Welcome to engVid. I'm Adam.

In today's video I want to talk to you about a particular type of adjective

that many people often confuse, especially beginners, but this is also good for intermediate, even advanced students.

We're talking about the "ed" and the "ing" adjectives. Okay?

So, for example: "bored" and "boring", "interested" and "interesting".

Now, the reason it's important to know the difference between these is because what you

say about yourself sometimes, how you describe things can be very confusing to a native speaker

especially, but to other people as well if you mix these two up.

Now, what does it mean to be bored and what does it mean to be boring?

When we talk about "bored", we're describing a feeling.

Okay?

When we talk about "interested", we're describing a feeling.

So all of the "ed" adjectives are actually feelings, and you can only use them to talk

about people and sometimes animals.

Why?

Because things, like chairs, or tables, or whatever, they don't have feelings.

A movie, a book doesn't have feelings.

TV shows, for example, movies, books, whatever, they cause a feeling in a person.

So the "ing" adjectives cause the feeling.

The "ed" adjectives are the feeling.

Okay? So very important.

Only people and animals for the "ed", and for the "ing" you can use people, animals,

things, situations, places, ideas, basically any noun because you're describing them.

You're describing how they make people feel.

So now you're wondering: "Well, I have people here and I have people here,

so how can I use 'boring' for people and for...

And 'bored' for people?"

Sorry. So what we have here, again, feeling and cause of feeling.

So if you say: "I'm bored" means that I'm not having fun, I want to go do something else.

If I say: "I am boring" means you're not having fun and want to go do something else.

So if I am boring means that you are bored.

If the movie is boring, then I am bored. Okay?

So one thing-the "ing"-causes the feeling-"ed"-in the person.

Very important to understand that.

So: "I am bored by the movie which is boring.

I am interested in this lesson because this lesson is very interesting."

Right?

"I'm excited, something is exciting."

So, for example, I'm excited to go see the concert because this artist is very exciting,

this singer or whatever.

"I am worried", now people don't realize that "worried" can have "worrying" as another adjective.

"The situation is worrying" means the situation is making me feel worried.

Okay? Maybe the whole global political situation, whatever.

Now, hopefully none of you are confused by this lesson because I'm trying to make it

not confusing.

Okay? Everybody okay with that?

So very important to understand all these nouns can use "ing" because they're creating

the feeling, all these adjectives can only be used for people, again, sometimes animals.

A dog sees...

Sees you coming home after a long day, gets very excited.

Its, you know, tail wagging in the back.

Dogs don't usually get bored, they just go to sleep.

So, animals sometimes.

Now, I just want to point out one other thing: Don't confuse feeling adjectives with "ed"

with actual feelings.

Okay?

If somebody is loved, does he feel loved?

Maybe yes, maybe no.

We're not talking about that person's feelings.

"Hated", "envied", these are all feeling words, but these are all verbs.

Okay?

"He is loved" means somebody loves him or her.

"She is loved.", "This person is hated."

But we can also use these about things.

Okay?

"The company is hated."

So some companies they do not such nice things or maybe they go to a poor country and use

very cheap labour, so this company is hated.

So people hate this company.

So keep in mind that these are feeling words, but used as verbs; whereas these are other

verbs used as adjectives.

Okay? Very important to distinguish between these words.

I hope this was clear enough.

One more thing to say, there's a very long list of these kinds of adjectives, you can just Google them

if you need to or you can even ask me in the forum at www.engvid.com.

There's a place you can ask questions, feel free to ask me about other examples of these.

But there's also a quiz at www.engvid.com where I'll give you more examples of these

kinds of adjectives, and you can practice using them in sentences.

Make sure you understand the context: "Is somebody feeling this?

Is something causing this?" etc.

Also, give me a like if you like this video, and don't forget to subscribe to my channel.

And I'll see you again very soon for another good lesson.

Hopefully an interesting lesson so you're interested and not confused.

See you then.