Unit 04 For a Better Community Lesson 2 Language

The difference between –ed and –ing adjectives * ed adjectives Adjectives that end ‘-ed’ describe emotions – they tell us how people feel about something.. - He was surprised to see Hele[r]

Lesson 2 Language

• Vocabulary

1 Read the conversation and find adj ending with

the following suffixes

Disadvantaged, interested, excited interesting

Useful, helpful, meaningful hopeless

2 Use the words in brackets with appropriate endings from 1 to

complete the following sentences

1 If people spend most of their time doing nothing, they will

find their lives _(mean)

2 I am in doing charity work (interest)

3 Last year, she was really at English She

couldn’t even say a word in English Now her English is

much better

4 The new teacher’s advice was very _ His

students could learn English vocabulary faster (use)

5 They were to know that their contributions

were _ to the poor people in that area

(excite, mean)

6 Our school volunteer activities are very (excite)

meaningless interested

hopeless

useful

excited meaningful

exciting

The difference between –ed and –ing adjectives

* ed adjectives

Adjectives that end ‘-ed’ describe emotions – they tell us how people feel about something.

- I was very bored in the maths lesson I almost fell asleep.

- He was surprised to see Helen She’d told him she was going to Australia.

- Feeling tired and depressed, he went to bed.

* -ing adjectives

Adjectives that end ‘-ing’ describe the thing that causes the emotion – a boring lesson makes you feel bored.

- Have you seen that film? It’s absolutely terrifying.

- I could listen to him for hours He’s one of the most

interesting people I’ve ever met.

- I can’t eat this! It’s disgusting! What is it?

* Remember that people can be boring but only if they

make other people feel bored.

He talks about the weather for hours He’s so boring.

NOT I was very boring at the party so I went home.

Compare the difference:

- My girlfriend is bored - (My girlfriend feels bored)

- My girlfriend is boring - (My girlfriend is a boring

person)

You can use these adjectives to describe people or situations but be careful that you are using the

correct adjective For example, there is a big

difference in meaning between:

- I am confused - (I don't understand something)

- I am confusing - (I will cause you to be confused )

Adjectives end in –ful or -less

• Most adjectives which end in -ful make the

negative with -less But, not allNoun Verb Adjective

help help (un)helpful/helpless

power power powerful/powerless

thought think thoughtful/thoughtless taste taste tasteful/tasteless

The adjectives in this table take -ful or -less, but not both.

count count countless/countable

success succeed (un)successful

1 Listen and repeat

I Irregular past tense verbs

I wore jeans to school yesterday

My sister and I bought a lot of clothes last summer

My father read newspapers in bed last Sunday.

My mother made my bed last Sunday

I wrote letters to my granparents yesterday afternoon