Monday 13 January 2014

State verbs

Q: Which famous company uses incorrect grammar in their advertisements?

In English, we can use verbs to talk about actions or feelings and emotions. Verbs that describe actions, for example, run, write, sing, are called action or dynamic verbs. We can use them in both simple and continuous tenses: Sorry, I can't stop! I am running a race!/ I run two miles every day. 

However, we usually only use simple tenses to talk about feelings and emotions. Verbs like want, like, prefer we don't use in continuous tenses. We say I want a new coat, not I am wanting a new coat. These are called state  or stative and we do not usually use them in continuous tenses. We only use state verbs in simple tenses.

Some of the most common state verbs are:

like      love     hate     want     understand    need      hear     see     smell     know     remember    believe      forget     prefer    agree     promise     mean      seem      depend  

So what about McDonald's and "I'm loving'it"? Well, grammatically, that is incorrect: what should it be?

You can read more about state verbs and do some practice here:
http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/what-are-state-verbs
http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/stative-verbs.html
http://thecrazyteacher.altervista.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/state-verbs.jpeg

Some verbs can be both state and dynamic verbs, but they change their meaning when they are used as state or dynamic. Which verbs? You can find out by following the links, and you will learn more about these verbs at intermediate level. 

1 comment:

  1. Hi Ryan
    Thanks for everything given to us.

    Saddam

    ReplyDelete