Participles used as adjectives

In our review of compound adjectives we found how some times both -ing and -ed forms can be used, usually with a difference. This is generally the same as for the pairs boring/bored, interesting/interested, etc.

Find some notes & exercises here: Review of participles in compound adjectives

Verbs followed by infinitive or -ing

Hi guys,

Some extra practice on this issue, which certainly requires some drilling!

Infinitive or ing - intro and forms

Infinitive or ing - common verbs

Infinitive or ing - both possible

A more systematic list of verbs taking both patterns with sample sentences.

And a very basic review of other usages of infinive or ing aside from these verb patterns.

Enjoy!

Infinitive and -ing in perception verbs

He saw me eating my fruit and said 'Enjoy!'
His mother saw him eat his meal and said, 'Now you can go play'

Acción en progreso: él me vió comiendo la fruta y dijo "¡qué aproveche!"
Acción completa: su madre le vió tomarse la comida y le dijo, "Ahora puedes ir a jugar"

Verbs of preception ing vs. infinitive

Extra practice on verbs with which both infinitive and ing are possible

Some usages of the progressive (continuous) aspect

Hi guys,

Detailed review of the progressive aspect, with sample sentences and a list of verbs we don't normally use in the progressive (and the meanings in which we do!)

Progressive aspect review


Some notes on how we can sometimes sound more polite by using the continuous:

Being polite - progressive usage

Past and perfect tenses

Hi guys,

You can use the first 6 pages to review and practice this. Page 6 has a nice summary. The rest of the package is for some of the more advanced usages, take those in slowly.

Adv - past and perfect tenses

You may also want to do some intermediate-level practice and here.

Used to and would: past habits and states

Hi guys,

Some extra exercises on "used to" for past habits and states:

Used to

And that similar (not identical) usage of "will/ would" for habits and repeated behaviours:

Int - Will and would for typucal behaviour
Adv - Will and would for typical behaviour

As a final note, please make sure you don't get confused with these structures:

Usually | used to | be/get used to

Participle clauses

Having promised this long ago, I now provide some further example.

Stand-alone participle clases (present '-ing' and past '-ed') - [brief notes & exercises]

Other than in this absolute, stand-alone construction (not having the -ed or -ing clause introduced by a conjunction), we can also find participle clauses following after, before, when, while, since...

-ing and -ed clauses with and without conjunctions 

Generally speaking, participle clauses are more formal, more likely to appear in writing. These are also called non-finite verb forms (non-finite porque en realidad no están conjugadas --a diferencia de los tiempos normales, finite forms-- y por lo tanto no tienen marca de tiempo, aunque sí pueden llevar a veces su propio sujeto).

Practice on non-finite clauses - transformation exercises


Anyways, remember grammar explanations are for fun... and grammar drilling for learning :)

Update: I link here a famous poem with a couple of examples.

Happy drilling!

to be to

A form of future which is constructed not so much as a regular verb tense but as a particular usage of the verb 'to be':

to be to (notes and exercises)

The syntax is quite like our "ir a", not so much the usage.

Modals: Certainty and necessity

Hi guys,

Some notes on the usage of must/can't for certainty, as we have been reviewing recently.

​

 Int - EGC - must cant - certainty.pdf

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Advanced: difference between "can't" and "must not"

And a brief review of this other usage, mustn't/don't have to for necessity:

 Int - EGC - must not - do not have to.pdf

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Enjoy

Verbs followed by as

There are not so many of them, but some are quite common and we need to learn them.

Verbs + as

Notice how this is different from using "as" as a conjunction, meaning "while" or :

As a conjunction and more sample sentences