How and when to use the Gerund (ing form) correctly in English
2025-06-15 21 min
Description & Show Notes
Confused by phrases like 'Do you mind…?' or 'What about…?'? In this episode, the Three English Experts break down the trickiest -ing structures and everyday expressions that learners often get wrong. With real-life tips, humour, and personal stories, you'll walk away with practical tools to sound more natural and confident in English!
- 0:03 - 1:26 Introduction & topic overview: The Gerund
- 1:27 - 3:26 Understanding the Gerund & common learner confusion
- 3:27 - 6:12 Grammar rule: Gerunds after prepositions & emotional verbs
- 6:13 - 9:05 Tips for learning Gerunds & verb lists
- 9:06 - 10:13 Native speaker perspective & the Gerund as a subject
- 10:14 - 11:12 Additional gerund context: Politeness & “would you mind...”
- 11:13 - 12:03 Subtle politeness and confusing phrasings
- 12:04 - 12:30 Useful everyday expressions: "appreciate" and "fancy"
- 12:30 - 13:10 Giving suggestions indirectly
- 13:11 - 13:45 Common mistakes and misinterpretations
- 13:45 - 14:29 Emphasizing points in meetings
- 14:30 - 15:21 Personal learning tips and incremental progress
- 15:21 - 16:17 Meaningful context matters
- 16:17 - 16:49 Teaching what matters
- 16:49 - 17:25 More handy expressions: "can't help" and "can't stand"
- 17:25 - 17:31 Grouping expressions for better learning
- 17:33 - 18:44 Emphasizing with "Do" and "Did"
- 18:45 - 19:29 Teaser for the next episode: Character strengths in language learning
- 19:30 - 21:08 Invitation to a 2-day live workshop in Cologne this September 25/26, visit www.threeenglishexpertsworkshop.com to register.
Would you like to work with us?
Rebecca: https://rebeccadeacon.com
Birgit: https://birgitkasimirski.de/
- 0:03 - 1:26 Einführung & Themenübersicht: Das Gerundium
- 1:27 - 3:26 Das Gerundium verstehen & häufige Verwirrung bei Lernenden
- 3:27 - 6:12 Grammatikregel: Gerundium nach Präpositionen & emotionale Verben
- 6:13 - 9:05 Tipps zum Lernen von Gerundium & Verblisten
- 9:06 - 10:13 Muttersprachlerperspektive & das Gerundium als Subjekt
- 10:14 - 11:12 Zusätzlicher Gerundiumkontext: Höflichkeit & „Would you mind...“
- 11:13 - 12:03 Subtile Höflichkeit und verwirrende Formulierungen
- 12:04 - 12:30 Nützliche Alltagsausdrücke: "schätzen" und "mögen"
- 12:30 - 13:10 Indirekt Vorschläge machen
- 13:11 - 13:45 Häufige Fehler und Fehlinterpretationen
- 13:45 - 14:29 Punkte in Meetings betonen
- 14:30 - 15:21 Persönliche Lerntipps und schrittweise Fortschritte
- 15:21 - 16:17 Auf den Kontext kommt es an
- 16:17 - 16:49 Lehren, worauf es ankommt
- 16:49 - 17:25 Weitere praktische Ausdrücke: "can't help" und "can't stand"
- 17:25 - 17:31 Gruppierung von Ausdrücken für besseres Lernen
- 17:33 - 18:44 Betonung mit "Do" und "Did"
- 18:45 - 19:29 Teaser für die nächste Folge: Charakterstärken beim Sprachenlernen
- 19:30 - 21:08 Einladung zu einem 2-tägigen Live-Workshop in Köln am 25. und 26. September, Anmeldung unter www.threeenglishexpertsworkshop.com.
Transcript
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the 3 English Experts. I'm Dave, I'm Rebecca, and I'm Birgit, and welcome
to this episode.
3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create
a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey.
Hi everyone, welcome to this episode. Today we are going back to some grammar and we are
going to talk about the gerund, which sounds very serious. It sounds like a person, the
gerund. Have you seen gerund? I haven't seen gerund recently. So the gerund is a fancy
word for the ing form, the ing form of a verb. So doing, working, living, playing, which
sounds pretty easy when you think about it. It doesn't sound very complicated, but it's
actually one of these topics where I would say B2, C1, big difference when you hear someone
using it correctly, it's a C1 topic. And I'm not talking now about present continuous.
I am living. I'm talking about other situations when you need the gerund that are not always
very obvious. So that's what we're going to talk about today. So Birgit is ready to go
on a grammar topic.
She's found gerunds. Birgit's found gerunds. Very good.
Birgit knows gerunds. She knows them.
I found it, him, her.
I don't know. It's a him gerund.
She's found him. She knows him. Gerund. Yeah. Yes. Hi everybody. Gerund. That's something
when I mentioned that with learners, they don't know what the hell I'm talking about
because hardly anybody remembers this from school. Of course it is in the curriculum
at school and people and students learn it, but it's for most people, it's been a long
time since they were in school. So what is it? It's as Rebecca said, substantivation.
So any word in the English language to learn can become a noun or a lot of words. Learning
is das Lernen. And there are certain verbs in the language that just require, need. They
ask for a gerund construction. As Rebecca said, that's on a more advanced level. I also
would say I wouldn't start that with somebody who is not capable of getting into the flow.
So I would work on other issues first, but eventually we will come to the gerund issue
because it is important. And one of the probably most well-known gerund construction and people
are not sure about and they use incorrectly, for example, is I'm looking forward to,
and then what is it? It should be to meeting, to hearing from you, to seeing you. And most
naturally a lot of people would of course say to meet you, to see you, to hear from you.
Why? Because of course that's the infinitive construction, the infinitive to, to go, to wear,
to swim. In most cases, yes, that's correct infinitive, but there are exceptions. This
is one of them. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Yeah, very complicated. People ask,
oh, why? Well, yeah, there's no why. It's just learning like vocabulary. And that's what I
learned, how I learned them when I was preparing for the Cambridge exam back in England 30 years
ago. Is that correct, Dave? Absolutely. And that is the main reason why I'm going to be,
I found gerund to, I'm going to be a swatty pants here. It's because the to is acting like
a preposition. So like on, under, at, in these prepositions, the to is actually a preposition.
And after prepositions, verbs should take the ing or the gerund, our friend's gerund
afterwards. And so that's the main reason why that is the way it is. Yes, exactly.
The to, infinitive to, it's actually using it as a preposition.
Exactly. So do you have some examples, Dave, for some prepositions?
I'm good at playing football. Good at, oh, good at.
I'm an expert at playing football.
Yeah, but you see, this is, sorry, I have to say that I'm good in, so the learning, I'm good at,
I'm good at, I'm good at doing. Yeah, good in is a typical mistake.
Yeah, I'm good at doing something. That's a very good.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry for being late. Another one, you know, so it's sorry,
plus for preposition and then being, or I apologize for being late. Yeah. So I think
that's an easier rule to remember, isn't it? Preposition, verb, plus preposition.
That's our number one, our number one rule.
Number one.
Number two.
Number two, I was going to go with the emotion one. So words like, or verbs like, like, like,
love, love, fancy, I hate, I don't like, I don't mind.
Can't help.
Can't help. These sort of feelings are often followed with the, or generally are followed
with gerund. So I like reading. I love eating pizza. I hate swimming in cold water.
I enjoy playing football.
I enjoy playing football. I enjoy watching football.
Yeah.
These sort of preferences, choices, things you, emotions that you like, you can follow
with the inform. There is sometimes a difference. So you can say, I like to swim, or you can say,
I like swimming. Very fine line between the two. I like to swim is often a specific time.
So I like to swim in the sea, but I don't like to swim in the swimming pools.
It's like a choice, or I like to swim in the morning before I start work.
Generally, I love swimming. I love it. It's great. I love swimming as a hobby,
but it is a fine line. And I would say even natives mix it up. They'll just go,
oh, I love swimming in the mornings. Oh yeah, I love to swim in the mornings. You can actually
say both. And then the learners are like, oh, why is there two options? And that is difficult,
but that's the sort of general, I would say difference.
Yeah. Very confusing for learners. And that's why I say it's like vocabulary. I suggest when I have
a list and we will add that to the podcast, certain verbs void or can't help or whatever.
I always thought for me, when I experienced that, it's just learning. If I hear the verb,
and then I remember. And people, one of my tips is you find a sentence that relates to your life.
I hate going out in the rain. I avoid eating pizza late at night or something like that.
Learning vocabulary, I think helps. Yeah. I totally agree. I totally agree.
You used one of those words that are big, actually. I suggest. We talked about suggest. So
this is another group of words that we can use often with the gerund. So suggest, propose,
recommend, what about, how about, as followed by the inform, what about eating pizza tonight?
I suggest learning more vocabulary. I recommend eating more pizza. I'm very hungry now. I keep
talking about pizza. Why am I fixed on that? I don't know. It's all right. I'm on football.
So football, very high level topics. So really deep. We're going deep today. Pizza.
Down to the most important things.
Go out walking in the rain. It's like walking in the rain, pizza and football.
The sun is shining, fortunately.
Deep topics. Did I miss any? So, yeah, some of these, and this is a,
I'm sure you guys hear this as well. This is classic, typical mistake. I suggest to go. No,
I suggest going. I recommend to eat. No, I recommend eating this dish or I recommend
eating more vegetables or something bigger. Yes. And I think why it is a common mistake,
because if you are left alone and go to common after school, the only way how you can learn that
is by picking it up. When people talk, you wouldn't read a lot about Gerund. And this
is why people are saying, what is that? I've never heard that unless you were into grammar
and you really paid attention. Yeah. I don't know whether I remember from school, I must say.
I don't think I do. But you see, that's the trouble. And you don't read like this is
the Gerund. We don't see that very often. No. And I think if you spoke to native speakers and said,
what's the Gerund? They would be like, I don't know. What is the Gerund? It's a newspaper.
I've never heard of it. Don't know the Gerund. I read the Gerund. It's our friend. Remember?
Yeah. It's our friend. Yeah. Some guy who, you know, works down the pub. I agree. They're big.
I think it's not a topic that people really focus on or think about. It's not like the
tenses, you know, you've got your top tenses and the Gerund. No, that you have in the bookshops,
there's shelves full on the tenses on present perfect or past tense future. But Gerund, I don't
know. So you have to really pay attention to that. Yeah. It's a good one to upgrade. It's a good
good one to learn. It is and people enjoy. I can see that when people relate to that. You see,
because we had that conversation before with the ING, people say and people have said that to me,
but ING, people say that all the time in English. Yeah, that's right. But for certain
different reasons, it's continuous, happening, could be Gerund, could be substantivation for a
verb. And to know better, have a better idea of why that could happen while you talk. I think that
helps in feeling safer when you use the language. Just one step further. I think, Birgit, you touched
on another topic when to use the Gerund and that is maybe sounds very complicated here. But if the
verb of the sentence is actually the subject of the sentence, if you say earning money is very
important in life, the earning is the verb with the ING. So the Gerund, earning money is very
important in life or I don't know, living healthily is very important or something connected to the
pizza. Absolutely. Yes, exactly. Pizza, football and walking in the rain. I believe you're obsessed.
So that's point number two. And then our number three, right, was which Rebecca already started
was with these verbs always come, sorry, the Gerund always comes after these verbs. You did
the emotion one, you did the suggestions. I've got one about politeness. So for example, with the mind,
so after you know the word mind, after that comes the ING. So would you mind helping me out on this
one? Okay. What's the problem though? Question, quick question. What's the problem when you have
the mind one? How can people answer it? Oh, yes. That's always a trick. So your question was what
would you mind ask your question, Dave? Would you mind helping me out, darling? No, I don't mind
helping you out. So I'm answering with a negative, but it's actually
positive. Yes. Which is very confusing. Would you mind opening the window?
No. I've seen learners go, yes. No, they don't know how to answer. They're just confused.
It is a very confusing one, the mind. Do you mind opening the window
or would you mind not smoking here? How do you even answer that?
Tricky one. And also the word appreciate, after the word appreciate, we often have the Gerund as
well. So I appreciate you coming to our session today. You can use that form as well. So the ING,
I appreciate you helping me. I appreciate you doing this. That's another one for a light
situation. Anyway, appreciate is a very good word. Some learners have never used that. Appreciate,
that Schätzen, I really enjoy sort of, ich weiß es zu schätzen, appreciate. And the other one I
mentioned earlier, a lot of people never heard that, fancy. Of course, we know there's like
something can be fancy, fancy dress, Verkleidung, but do you fancy, what do you fancy doing?
Wo hast du Lust? That's also a good one in this context. Yeah.
I also find the ones with simple phrases like how about and what about. In a meeting,
you're trying to give your suggestion. Well, how about changing the coffee machine or what about
doing this on Fridays or whatever? It's a really simple way of giving a proposal.
It's indirect. It's without saying, I think we should get a new coffee machine. There's no I,
it's just what about investing in a new coffee machine? It's like giving an idea,
but indirectly without using I and my opinion, it's sort of, and it's just an inform. And a
lot of people say, what about to do? So it's no, it's what about doing.
Or even they try to translate how is it worth? You see, I very often realize that how about
and what about is not so commonly known, even with more experienced people,
they still translate how is it? Oh no, better.
Or the what's, they always say what's about. So it's not what's, it's what, what about?
What about? Yeah. How about, what about? Yeah. We should add that to the list or somehow
make it stick. That's very good.
So we have a list. Dave, do we have a list?
We will have a list. Yes.
Very good. I'm just delegating that to you. We're having a list.
We're having a list. We will have a list after I've watched the football.
There is another one. There is another one. Speaking of meetings, that's maybe a more
formal English. You often hear this in news, I think, when people say it's worth mentioning
or it's worth highlighting. Maybe if you're in a meeting and you want to talk about some reports,
you could say it's worth highlighting this. It's worth mentioning that or something like that.
That's an also quite a good.
Yeah. Word is a good one.
Is it worth watching football?
Oh, definitely. Especially when Liverpool's playing.
Is it worth watching Liverpool?
Yes.
Is it worth listening to our podcast?
Oh, definitely. 100%. No doubt in that. Yeah. But you see, when I remember learning all these,
because I was like, oh my God, there's another one. I didn't know.
There's another one. I remember learning. Very good.
I remember learning. Yeah. That's another one.
Yeah. Now it's become a natural thing to use them. But obviously, 30 years ago, it wasn't.
And then I was like, blimey, another one. And there's one. Not one I don't. It's a long list.
It can be long list. And my tip is for learners who really want to add some, do it in small steps.
Add five, you'll really enjoy. I mean, I'm really thinking of, I'm looking forward to
seeing you or meeting you. Take it in packages of five this week, five next week or whatever.
And like you said, yeah.
Yeah. And in small steps, yeah.
And learn ones, create sentences that have meaning to you, your life, your job,
that you can then use. Because if you create a sentence that's not relevant,
and you don't use it, and then you don't learn it. So I think people, it's such a basic idea,
but so many people learn things. When you're learning from a book, when I learned Japanese,
I learned ridiculous vocabulary about.
Pullover.
Yeah. My pullover, leaving my pullover on the Shinkansen. And it had a picture of a horse on
it and it was made of wool. And I left it in this place and I had to go and pick it up. And it was
just.
You mean you don't have a t-shirt with a horse on it?
It was, oh, Dave, it was a knitted jumper.
Oh, a knitted jumper. I'm sorry.
It wasn't even a t-shirt. And I left it on the Shinkansen and I had to call this office.
As you do.
That was my role play.
As you do when you're learning Japanese.
That was my role play. And I just thought I've just lost 20 minutes of my life discussing this.
Not relevant. Not relevant.
And that's when you decided to teach only things that's relevant.
Yeah, absolutely.
Something similar with me. Yeah. That's the reason why I don't enjoy that when people
taught me things and I thought I was losing time.
Well, I think the way we've done it today, actually, just bulking it down into small
little chunks where we did the emotion and we did the suggestions and just maybe learning them
step by step or the politeness, the two politeness that I gave and just try and learning it that way.
There is one more. Can't help, can't stand.
Oh, yes.
Which comes maybe back to the emotions a little bit. But, yeah, I can't stand watching Manchester
United play football. Anyway.
Steady. Steady. They're in the final. Europa League. Come on.
Now we're getting personal.
No chance.
Yes. It goes on the list of, I would agree, grouping. Learn some of the emotion ones.
The preposition rule is a good one, is an easy one that helps.
This suggesting, recommending group, the polite group.
But like Birgit said, you can be learning for a very long time and they will just
pop up all over the place.
Yeah.
All the time.
Yeah. Noting them down.
The Golden Nugget.
Okay.
Okay. And here's some a little extra information, just a little interesting feature of the language
when you want to put emphasis on something, on a sentence, you want to state, you can
use do or did, which is usually only in negative or in questions.
But I do like this feature.
I really do.
So I put it in this statement where I don't need it.
I like this feature.
I could have said, but I do like this feature.
So can you hear there's some emphasis?
I'm putting some extra stress on it.
I want to really make sure.
I could say Dave really does like football, doesn't he?
Yes. So you can use that also in the past tense.
So I did go and meet my friend last night.
So you want to stress it eventually happened.
So somebody maybe wasn't sure, were you meeting him?
We were.
You could use any sort of auxiliary health verb.
That's a nice little feature to just make sure everybody understands that was something special.
So thank you everybody for listening today.
Next time we're looking at a topic that I think will be really interesting for you guys.
It's all about character strengths.
And this comes into the idea of mindset and motivation a little bit.
What strengths, character strengths are maybe important for learning languages
we're going to talk about and how that can maybe affect you.
And if there are situations where you could improve your language learning ability
by increasing these strengths.
So that's going to be a big topic in our next session.
Looking forward to seeing you there.
Looking forward to seeing you there next time.
Looking forward to being there.
Meeting you again.
Looking forward.
Bye.
Bye bye.
Bye bye.
So are you ready to upgrade your English?
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Uncomfortable when you speak English?
Or maybe you're stuck at a certain level and you're trying to upgrade?
Take it to the next level?
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