Present Participle Forms in English

Today we’ll be talking about present participle forms in English. These are forms that we make by adding the –ING ending to the base form of the verb, at least in most cases. There are some minor subtleties, however, that you should definitely be aware of and we’re going to discuss them in this article. But to start with, when do we use present participles?

The present participle is a verb form that is used in a couple of ways. On its own it can act as a noun denoting the activity expressed by the verb. For example there is the verb TO SPEAK and its corresponding present participle form SPEAKING. The latter is the act of doing what is expressed by the meaning of the former, if it makes any sense. I think you get my point.

Here’s an example where this noun is used:

She likes speaking.

Present participles also have adjectival and adverbial meaning. Here’s an example with adjectival meaning:

dancing children

And and example of adverbial meaning:

Waiting there, she noticed her friend.

Present participles are also used in some tenses, in particular in all continuous tenses like Present Continuous, Past Continuous, Present Perfect Continuous and Past Perfect Continuous. Here are some examples in all these tenses in order as above:

They are reading.

They were reading.

They have been reading.

They had been reading.

Now that you know when this form is used, let’s have a look at how it’s created.

Regular Present Participle Forms

In the most basic scenario all you have to do to create the present participle form of a verb is add the –ING ending to the base form of the verb:

+ ing

But, as mentioned before, things sometimes get slightly more complicated.

Present Participle Forms of Verbs Ending in –e

This is the case, for example, if the base form of the verb ends in –e. Then the final  –e is dropped before the –ING ending.

– e  + ing

There are some exceptions, though. The following verbs do not drop or may optionally drop the final –e:

Verbs Ending in –ee or –oe

Another exception are verbs that end in –ee or –oe. Such verbs always maintain these vowel clusters.

+ ing

Verbs Ending in –ie

Another group of verbs you should be careful with are verbs that end in –ie. In their present participle forms the final –ie is replaced by –y.

ie → y   + ing

Verbs Ending in –c

Also verbs ending in –c require our attention. Their present participles add an additional –k before the –ING ending.

c → ck   + ing

Doubling the Final Consonant in Present Participle Forms

There’s one more thing related to our topic that many students of English, and sometimes even native speakers, have problems with. Sometimes the final consonant is doubled in present participles. When is it the case? Here’s the rule:

single consonant after short vowel in stressed syllable

I used the colors on purpose. In the examples below you can see the same colors so that you know what goes with what. The –ING ending is in red. The final consonants are in blue. They are single in the base forms and doubled in participle forms. The green color is for short vowels. The italicized syllables in the last two examples are the stressed ones.

These are basically all the subtleties I wanted to talk about. I hope you can now create correct present participle forms of any verb.