What is Gerund? Definition and Example Sentences

What is Gerund? Definition and Example Sentences

Gerunds

Gerunds formed by adding -ing suffix to elephants have an important place in this language in terms of the variety of words in English. Learning this subject is very important in terms of establishing a correct and regular sentence in English. In fact, before you start learning this basic grammar topic, you can review the following examples:

• I saw her talking to her friend.
• My brain needs resting.

As you can see in these examples, the rest and talk verbs are not the main verbs of these sentences. Although the main verbs are see and need, other verbs have -ing suffix and these verbs with -ing suffix are called gerunds.

Here are 58 Verbs Followed by Gerunds

What Is Gerund Used For?

It is very important to learn where and how Gerund, which is one of the important subjects of English, is used.

Verbs Used in a Gerund Following

In English, the gerund is often used after some verbs, we can summarize these verbs in tabular form and show you:

Examples of these verbs:

• He finished moving the furniture in his room.
• Since he is a very anxious person, he cannot help but talk at length about any subject.
• He avoided talking to her so as not to break her heart because they fought a while ago.
• I appreciated that he was so successful in his studies despite all the difficulties.
• I predicted that these bad things would happen to us, but no one listened to me.
• He admitted in the courtroom that he had defrauded people online.
• He wanted to spend all day watching TV series, but he spent all day working.

You Can Use Gerunds as Subjects in Sentences

If you want to talk about the nature of an activity or any action, but this action or activity is not your main verb, you can use gerunds. Here are some examples of sentences using gerunds and talking about an action or activity:

• Studying is the most important thing required to successfully graduate from school.
• Going to the gym regularly will keep you fit and gain muscle.
• Although lifting weights makes women more muscular, it doesn’t make women as moldy as men.

You Can Use Gerunds After Prepositions

You can use Gerunds after prepositions such as with, into, from, despite, towards, in, to, of, on, at, without, about, like, between, and after. Since prepositions are not limited to this, it would be most logical to know that you can use Gerunds after any preposition.

• They are planning to get married five years from now, that is after they graduate from school.
• He left me without telling me anything, so I will never forgive him.

You Can Use Gerunds to Complete Nouns

If any noun comes immediately after the gerund structure is made, it is a kind of noun phrase. In other words, if you add -ing to a verb and add a noun after it, you can create a noun phrase. The best examples that can be given to this subject are swimming pool, living room and shopping center.