All you need to know about Gerunds in English
What are Gerunds in English? Gerunds in English are special verbs that are also nouns.
Gerunds in English: Meaning
A gerund is one of three classes of verbs — words that are based on verbs and express an action or a state of being but serve another grammatical function. (The other two classes are known as participles and infinitives.) A gerund, which functions as a noun, can either consist of a single word or a phrase.
We make gerunds in English by adding +ing to the infinitive form of the verb.
Example: sleep+ing=sleeping
eat+ing=eating
drink+ing=drinking
They look the same as the present/past continuous form of verbs but they are different as gerunds are verbs used as nouns.
Gerunds in English: Examples
Examples of Gerunds in Sentences
- Writing is an exchange of ideas.
- Swimming has been her passion ever since she was a kid.
- I delayed telling Hemant the bad news.
- Let’s go camping this weekend.
- He was avoiding his assignment since he was preoccupied with other thoughts.
- I love reading.
- My love for baking was immediate and immense.
- Harry’s favorite activity is painting.
- Jaswinder’s occupation is writing.
- Koyana is going dancing at the club tonight.
Common Mistakes
“I appreciate you coming over.”
“I let them know about you being a tattoo artist.”
Most people would believe that the sentences mentioned above are grammatically correct. Unfortunately, most people are not always right, just like they aren’t here.
When you say “I appreciate you coming over”, you are expressing your gratitude for something that they did and not necessarily them as a person. Another explanation for this is that in this case ‘coming’ is a gerund i.e. a noun. Therefore, the possessive form (his, her, your, our, my) needs to be used instead of a pronoun (he, she, you, they, me).
Therefore, the correct way of using gerunds is:
“I appreciate your coming over.”
“I let them know about your being a tattoo artist.”
We hope this article helped you!