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

I'm interested in this website that is very interesting for me.

I really interested about this grammar.

The lessens are very helpful, thank you very much.

Thank you so much for this exercises.

Thanks for these explanations and exercises.You're helping too much students all over the world

Thank you for your great lessons.

I think that " -ed" is for living and "-ing" is for things. Am I right?

Hello Hlaingbobo Win,

That's not quite right. You can use both forms with people and things.

The difference is this: adjectives ending in -ing describe how a person or thing affects others, while adjectives ending in -ed describe how a person or things feels or is changed.

That was a boring film. I didn't enjoy it.

Paul is interesting. I like listening to him

I have a broken computer so I can't send you the document.

Do you have a working computer? I need to send an email.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Your lessons are the best, they never make me bored.

Hi vanessa Rodri,

That's great! Thanks for your kind comment :)

Jonathan