Adjectives ending in -ing vs -ed

When we're asked to give an adjective, we may likely go for words like beautiful, good, bad, or happy. However, adjectives ending in -ing and -ed are just as commonly used in everyday language and they are often a source of confusion among English learners.

For example, we have the pair interesting versus interested, or disappointing versus disappointed, and a very commonly confused pair, bored and boring. Sometimes you might hear somebody say, “I’m boring” but what they actually mean is “I’m bored”. He or she is feeling bored. 

So first, let’s understand the difference between -ing adjectives and -ed adjectives.

• Adjectives ending in –ing such as tiring, amazing, and shocking, are used to talk about the characteristic or quality of a thing, situation or even a person. So if you say “I’m boring” then you are describing yourself as a boring person.
• On the other hand, adjectives ending in –ed such as tired, amazed, and shocked, are used to describe our feelings and emotions, meaning we use –ed adjectives to describe how we feel about a situation, event, person, or thing. So if you say “I’m bored,” for example, with a longer sentence, “I’m bored with this book,” then you mean that you think the book is not interesting to read.

Let’s compare these two side by side before we have more examples:





Let’s have more examples for –ing adjectives:

1. The five-hour hike was really tiring. In this sentence, we are describing the characteristic of an activity, which is hiking, so we will use an –ing adjective.
2. The baby foxes at the animal reservation were cute and amazing. Here, amazing describes the characteristics of the baby foxes.

On the other hand, below are a couple of examples for adjectives ending in –ed. 

1. The fast pace of the hike made most of the participants really tired. The adjective tired is describing how the participants feel.
2. The children were amazed at the sight of the cute baby foxes.  The adjective amazed is describing how the children felt when they saw the baby foxes.

 
Now let’s try to take a look at two sentences with errors regarding adjectives ending in –ing  or –ed.

1. I'm interesting to know how you accomplished that.

• In this sentence, “interesting” is describing how the speaker feels so the correct adjective should be “interested”: I’m interested to know how you accomplished that.”

2. The children feel boring with doing the same activities every day.

• In this sentence, we are describing how the children feel, so the correct adjective should be “bored” instead of “boring”: “The children feel bored with doing the same activities every day.” 

Now that we’ve talked about when to use –ing and –ed adjectives correctly, let’s have more exercises! I will explain the answers to the first two items in this exercise, but you’ll have to answer the rest. Then you can check your answers at the end of this article.

1. The professor was [ annoyed/annoying ] with the students who did not follow her safety instructions.

• What is the adjective describing? Is it the characteristic of the professor, or is it about how the professor felt? It is about how the professor felt towards the students who did not follow safety instructions, so the correct answer is [annoyed]: The professor was [annoyed] with the students who did not follow her safety instructions.

2. My grades were really [ disappointed/disappointing ] last semester so I vowed to work harder this term.

• What is the adjective describing? It’s describing [my grades], not my feelings, so the correct answer is [disappointing]. My grades were really disappointing last semester. 

3. The sudden increase in the number of infections is [ worried/worrying ].
4. She got [ worried/worrying ] when the team did not call her for a few days.
5. Jessie is just not [ interested/interesting] in sci-fi movies. She prefers romantic comedies.
6. It was my first time to experience such a strong earthquake. It was [ terrified/terrifying ].
7. We were all [ surprised/surprising ] when she said she was quitting her job.
8. I had high expectations for this movie and I was not [disappointed/disappointing ].
9. The test was quite difficult. It’s [ amazed/amazing ] that I passed at all.
10. The plot twists in the story are quite [ confused/confusing ].
11. That horror movie shows a lot of [ frightened/ frightening ] scenes.
12. After checking the quality of the products, I was quite [ satisfied/ satisfying ] with them.
13. It’s my first time to travel abroad so I’m really [ excited/exciting ].
14. My friend likes to try exotic and weird foods that some might find [ disgusted/disgusting ].
15. On my second week just staying at home, I started to get [bored/boring].
16. I liked the video but the soundtrack was a bit [ irritated/irritating ].
17. His habit of being late to meetings is really [ annoyed/annoying ].
18. I just had a very [ satisfied/satisfying ] meal at the restaurant you recommended.
19. I think this color combination is very [ pleased/pleasing ] to the eye.
20. She gave incomplete instructions so now I’m a little [ confused/confusing ].
 
That’s the end of our drills on adjectives ending with –ing and –ed. I really hope you found these exercises useful. As you may know, when it comes to correct grammar, you have to train your ear to listen for the correct patterns and word usage so you may want to do the drills a couple of times until you get all the answers correctly. 

Answers:
3. worrying
4. worried
5. interested
6. terrifying
7. surprised
8. disappointed
9. amazing
10. confusing
11. frightening
12. satisfied
13. excited
14. disgusting
15. bored
16. irritating
17. annoying
18. satisfying
19. pleasing
20. confused

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