Hot Tip: Differentiating Ing Vs Ed In English Adjectives

There’s a difference between being “interesting” and “interested.”
man and woman walking down the street smiling in matching blue puffy jackets ing vs ed

English, as a language, famously doesn’t make a great deal of sense. But once in awhile, you get a few good rules of thumb you can rely on, like in the case of adjectives that end in -ing vs. -ed. Which one is it?

English teacher Michel says, “One thing that I find regularly crops up is the confusion between using -ing vs. -ed at the end of adjectives.”

Though Michel personalizes feedback according to each student, here are his typical guidelines for mastering this grammatical quandary:

  • An -ing adjective is used to describe the characteristic of a person, a thing or a situation.
  • An -ed adjective is used to describe an emotion or feeling. In Michel’s words, “It is used to describe a temporary thing.”
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Steph Koyfman

Steph is a senior content producer who has spent over five years writing about language and culture for Babbel. She grew up bilingually and had an early love affair with books, and, later, studied English literature and journalism in college. She also speaks Russian and Spanish, but she’s a little rusty on those fronts.

Steph is a senior content producer who has spent over five years writing about language and culture for Babbel. She grew up bilingually and had an early love affair with books, and, later, studied English literature and journalism in college. She also speaks Russian and Spanish, but she’s a little rusty on those fronts.