English Grammar - Stative Verbs

797,048 views ・ 2011-08-24

English with Ronnie


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Greetings and salutations. My name is Ronnie, and today I'm going to teach you, by request,
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some verbs that we like to call "stative verbs." "What are stative verbs?" you ask? Hmm. Stative
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verbs are verbs that are not action verbs. So verbs like "jump" or "run" or "wave" or "smile"
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all have actions to do with them. I like to call these "active verbs." How crazy. They are not
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action verbs. They are stative verbs. Now, the rule about stative verbs is you cannot -- this
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means don't do it -- use "to be" verb with the stative verbs, which I will explain with examples.
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So, first of all, you have to know the groups or categories of stative verbs. I've broken them
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down for you into four easy-to-remember categories. The first one is your feelings or your emotions,
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how you feel. So, example, "love," "hate," "like." If it is a verb that has to do with what you feel
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in your heart of hearts, you cannot say this. "This is wrong." Okay? Hmm. Then you're thinking,
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"Uh-oh. Hey, Ronnie, you -- I went to a restaurant" -- we'll use that in quotations -- "and I saw
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commercial, and it said, 'I'm loving it.'" Yes, it did, but I'm here to tell you that advertisements,
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restaurants, creative license gives you or anyone the right to use grammar in a wrong fashion. So,
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"This is actually wrong." The shock, the horror. What you have to say is, very simply, "I love it."
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Yay. That's a heart. It looks like a heart, doesn't it? No. "I'm loving it" is incorrect.
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Okay? You cannot say, "I'm hating it." Grammatically, it is wrong. "I'm liking it" grammatically is
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wrong. But I say this a lot. I say, "I'm really liking my pizza." Grammatically, it is wrong. So,
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when you have a grammar test, do not use "to be" verbs with these stative verbs. In casual
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conversation, we, in slang, if you will, do say it. "We are wrong. We're such bad people."
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The next category is senses. We have five senses. Smell, taste, hearing, and touch. Okay? So,
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anything to do with hearing, see, sight, feel, smell, and sound is, again, hearing. You cannot
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say, "I'm hearing the music." Grammatically, you have to say, "Oh, I hear the music." Again,
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this is only for grammar. In conversation, we break all of these rules. "Oh, don't you love
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conversation and hate grammar?" Next group is things that have to do with thinking or your
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brain power. Now, feelings are from your brain as well, but we say they're from the heart. Thinking
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is only brain functions. For example, "forget" -- what? "Forget" is the opposite of "remember." "Be"
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-- "to be" -- you can't say, "I am being. I am being happy." Are you? Twice. Don't say it. "Know"
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is knowledge. "Understand" -- "I am understanding" is not correct in English grammar. And "imagine"
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-- "imagining" -- you cannot say, "I'm imagining" in grammar. Conversation -- yes. Grammar -- no.
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And the last one is "belonging" -- something that you actually possess, you own, you have,
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or it belongs to you. You cannot say, "I am having a marker." Are you having a marker? We would say,
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"I'm having a baby," which is okay, but I can't have a marker. That would be odd. So, state of
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verbs -- very important. In grammar, cannot be used with "to be" verbs. In conversation,
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feel free to break all the rules. I always do. Good-bye.
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