Question & Answer: GERUNDS

5 years ago

I am having trouble understanding how to explain when to use gerunds with nouns and verbs to form adjectives. For example, we say "John is embarrassing" as in "John is an embarrassing person to be around" (he embarrasses himself and whoever is accompanying him). Embarass is a verb made into the adjective "embarassing" by adding a gerund ("-ing).  Also, "This juice is pleasing [to the senses]" or "He is comforting" are other examples of the verbs "to please" and "to comfort" being made into adjectives.

Here's what I came up with:

When using verbs and nouns that aren't also abstract nouns (emotions like happy, sad, angry) that stand on their own, you must change the verb to a gerund in order to relate it to a noun. 

Disgust (verb) : "Todd is disgusting"/ "Todd is a disgusting person."
Disappoint (verb) : "That was disappointing." / "She has a disappointing product."
Challenge (verb/noun): "He is a challenging person." / "They each have challenging personalities."
Tire; as in "to tire of something" (verb): "That was really tiring."

These are a few examples of how to turn a verb into a gerund.

There are certain verbs in which changing it into a gerund isn't necessary:

Intrude (verb) will turn into intrusive (adjective), BUT you can still say that someone is intruding. "Stop reading my diary. Wow, you are so intruding!"

Pity will turn into pitiful.

If any fellow teachers have tips, please share them with us all!

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