Participles

Participles are verb forms used as adjectives, in tenses, and in phrases. English has two: the present participle (-ing) and the past participle (-ed or irregular).

2 Forms, 1 Core Rule

Every participle choice comes down to one question:

The noun…	Use	Form
performs the action (active)	present participle	-ing
receives the action (passive)	past participle	-ed / irregular

This rule applies whether you are forming a tense, choosing an adjective, or building an advanced phrase. Master this distinction and all four sections of this lesson fall into place.

This lesson covers four uses of participles — from A2 identification to B2 advanced structures:

1. Recognizing present and past participle forms — tenses, passive, and adjective roles
2. Choosing -ing or -ed as adjectives — the most common error zone
3. Participles after perception verbs — see, hear, feel, watch, notice
4. Advanced structures — perfect participle, causative, and dangling participles

Note: Participle vs Gerund — same -ing form, different function

The present participle and the gerund look identical. The difference is grammatical:

• Gerund (functions as a noun): Swimming is good exercise. / She enjoys swimming.
• Present participle (functions as an adjective or verb phrase): a swimming fish / She is swimming.

Quick test: If you can replace the -ing word with "it" or a noun phrase, it is a gerund. If it modifies a noun or follows a form of be, it is a participle.

For full coverage of gerunds, see Gerunds.

1. Participle Forms: Present (-ing) and Past (-ed / Irregular)

English has two participle forms, each built differently and used for different grammatical purposes.

Present Participle: -ing

Formed by adding -ing to the base verb. Spelling rules:

Past Participle: -ed or Irregular

For regular verbs, add -ed (same as past simple):

For irregular verbs, the past participle is a distinct third form:

⚠️ Past simple vs past participle — the most common A2 error

"Broke" is past simple. "Broken" is past participle. They are not interchangeable. After signal words like was, has, had, or get, you always need the past participle.

• The window was broke. ❌ → The window was broken. ✅
• She has never rode a horse. ❌ → She has never ridden a horse. ✅

For a full list of irregular verb forms, see Irregular Verbs.

Where Each Form Appears: Signal Words

The grammatical context determines which form you need:

👉 Practice Recognizing Participle Forms →

2. Active vs Passive: Choosing -ing or -ed as Adjectives

This is the most productive error zone in English participle use. Both -ing and -ed forms work as adjectives — but they carry opposite meanings.

The Core Rule

Think of it this way: -ing = the source; -ed = the receiver.

⚠️ Emotion Adjective Pairs

These pairs are the most frequently confused items in English participle exercises:

Examples in context:

• The match was really exciting. The fans were excited. (The match = source → -ing; Fans = receivers → -ed)
• Her speech was inspiring. The audience felt inspired. (Speech = source; Audience = receivers)
• That homework is exhausting. I feel completely exhausted. (Homework = source; I = receiver)

⚠️ The Adjective Trap

The three most common mistakes with emotion adjectives:

❌ Incorrect	✅ Correct	Why
The movie was very bored.	The movie was boring.	A movie causes boredom → -ing
I was so boring at the party.	I was so bored at the party.	I felt boredom → -ed
It was an exhausted experience.	It was an exhausting experience.	The experience caused exhaustion → -ing

Quick self-check: Substitute the noun with "something" or "someone":

• something bores you → it is boring (something is active = -ing)
• you feel bored→ you are bored (you receive the state = -ed)

Participles as Reduced Relative Clauses

Participles also work as compact relative clauses before or after nouns. The same active/passive rule applies:

For a deeper focus on -ing and -ed adjectives specifically, see Participial Adjectives.

👉 Practice -ing vs -ed Adjectives →

3. Participles After Perception Verbs

Perception verbs — see, hear, feel, watch, notice, observe — are followed by an object and then a participle. The choice between -ing and past participle again follows the active/passive rule.

Structure

Perception verb + object + present participle (-ing) — the object performs the action:

• I saw the children playing in the park. (The children were playing — active.)
• We watched the cat creeping toward the bird. (The cat was creeping — active.)
• She felt tears rolling down her cheeks. (The tears were rolling — active.)

Perception verb + object + past participle — the object receives the action:

• She heard her name called over the loudspeaker. (Her name was called by someone — passive.)
• I saw the car repaired within an hour. (The car was repaired — passive.)

⚠️ Never Use the To-Infinitive After Perception Verbs

This is a systematic error. Learners often over-generalize from verbs like ask or want (which take to + infinitive) and incorrectly write:

Memory hook: Perception verbs take you into the action. You see or hear it happening, so use the active -ing form. The to-infinitive is for intention or purpose (I went there to sing), not perception.

Participles as Pre-Noun Modifiers

Both -ing and past participles frequently appear before nouns to describe a permanent or habitual state:

Past participle (passive state — the noun received the action):

Present participle (active/ongoing quality):

👉 Practice Participles After Perception Verbs →

4. Advanced Structures: Perfect Participle, Causative, and Dangling Participles

4.1 — Perfect Participle: Having + Past Participle

When you want to show that one action was completed before another, use the perfect participle:

Structure: Having + past participle, [main clause]

Note: "Having + past participle" is the active perfect participle. For a passive version: "Having been + past participle" (Having been informed of the changes, she acted immediately.)

4.2 — Causative: Have / Get + Object + Past Participle

Use have or get + object + past participle to say someone else performs an action for you:

The past participle is essential here because the object always receives the action:

• I got my phone screen replaced. ✅ (Screen receives the replacing.)
• I got my phone screen replacing. ❌ (Screen cannot perform the replacing.)

Have + past participle also describes unfortunate events:

He had his wallet stolen on the train. (He did not arrange this — it happened to him.)

Context and meaning distinguish the "arranged service" from the "unfortunate event" use.

4.3 — Passive Participial Phrases

A past participle at the start of a sentence creates a passive participial phrase — a compact way to express reason, condition, or circumstance with passive meaning:

This follows the same core rule: the subject of the main clause receives the action described in the participle phrase (passive = past participle). The implied structure is "Because/If/When it was [past participle]..."

Active vs Passive introductory phrases at a glance:

• Active: Finding the bank closed, he went to the ATM. (He found it — he performed the action → -ing)
• Passive: Built in 1990, the building is a monument. (It was built — it received the action → past participle)

4.4 — ⚠️ Dangling Participles

A dangling participle occurs when the participle phrase does not logically connect to the grammatical subject of the main clause. The participle appears to modify the wrong noun — often with unintentionally comic results.

Rule: The implied subject of a participle phrase must be the same as the grammatical subject of the main clause.

How to detect a dangling participle:

1. Find the participle phrase (the -ing or -ed phrase at the start of the sentence).
2. Ask: "Who or what is doing/receiving this action?"
3. Check whether that implied subject matches the grammatical subject of the main clause.
4. If they do not match, the participle is dangling — rewrite the main clause.

👉 Practice Advanced Participle Structures →

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Quick Summary

"Which Participle?" — 4-Step Decision Flow

Step 1: What grammatical role does the participle play?

• In a continuous tense (is/was + ?) → use -ing
• In a passive or perfect tense (was/has/had + ?) → use past participle
• After get/have + object (causative) → use past participle
• As an adjective or modifier → go to Step 2
• After a perception verb → go to Step 3
• Starting an advanced phrase → go to Step 4

Step 2: Adjective choice (-ing vs -ed)

• Ask: Does the noun cause the feeling, or experience it?
• Cause = -ing (boring, exciting, exhausting)
• Experience = -ed (bored, excited, exhausted)

Step 3: After a perception verb

• Does the object perform the action? → -ing (I saw her running)
• Does the object receive the action? → past participle (I heard my name called)
• Never use to-infinitive after perception verbs

Step 4: Advanced phrases

• Action completed before the main verb → having + past participle
• Starting phrase — does its implied subject match the main clause subject? If not → dangling participle, rewrite

Key Signal Words at a Glance

Practice Tips

1. Test every emotion adjective with "source or receiver." When you see a blank before an emotion adjective, ask: "Is this noun the source of the feeling or the person who feels it?" Source → -ing. Receiver → -ed. This eliminates the boring/bored class of errors permanently.
2. After perception verbs, block the to-infinitive entirely. When you write see, hear, feel, watch, or notice, train yourself to never follow the object with "to + verb". Your only choices are -ing (active) or past participle (passive).
3. For irregular verbs, drill the third column. Past participle errors (broke vs broken, rode vs ridden) come from not knowing the third column of the irregular verb table. Practise the three-column forms: break / broke / broken. See Irregular Verbs for the full list.
4. For dangling participles, read the subject aloud. After writing a sentence that starts with a participle phrase, pause and say: "Who is [verb]-ing? Is it [the subject]?" If the answer is no, rewrite the main clause.
5. Use the 4-step flow as a checklist during participle exercises. With practice, the steps become automatic and you stop second-guessing which form to use.

Practice All Exercises

Ready to practise English participles? These participles exercises online — with answers and explanations — cover A2 to B2 level, from recognising basic present and past participle forms to advanced B2 structures. Printable participles exercises PDF worksheets are also available for offline study. Start with past participle exercises (Set 1) to identify irregular forms in passive and perfect tenses, then move to participle adjectives exercises (Set 2) for choosing between -ing and -ed when describing nouns — including past participles as adjectives and the classic boring/bored distinction. Set 3 covers perception verbs and pre-noun modifiers, while Set 4 offers participles exercises B2 level practice with dangling participles, causatives, and perfect participle forms. Every question includes full explanations — participle exercises with answers for immediate feedback:

Now try the exercises to practise what you've learned!