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English verbs have five basic forms:
the base form, the - S form,
the -
ing
form, the past form, and the past participle
form.
There are
several ways to spell -ing
forms:
| 1. |
|
If a verb ends in a stressed vowel + one or more
consonants +
e or
ue, "drop" the e and add
-
ing.
Examples:
abáte / abating; ache / aching;
bathe / bathing;
beliéve / believing; bite
/ biting; care / caring;
deléte / deleting;
dive / diving; ensláve / enslaving;
excíte
/ exciting; file /
filing; gripe / griping;
hope
/
hoping; joke / joking; live / living;
make /
making; paráde / parading; paste / pasting;
raise
/ raising; revíle /
reviling; save / saving;
smoothe
/
smoothing; taste / tasting;
glue / gluing; rue
/ ruing; sue / suing
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| 2. |
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If a verb ends in - ie,
change the -
ie to
- yand
add - ing.
Examples:
die / dying; lie / lying; tie / tying;
vie / vying
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| 3. |
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If a verb
ends in y, add
- ing. It doesn't matter if
there
is a vowel or a consonant before y.
Examples:
pry / prying
spy / spying
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pray / praying
spay / spaying
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| 4. |
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If a verb ends in a vowel + one consonant,
double the consonant and add
-
ing.
Examples:
beg / begging; chat / chatting; dig
/ digging;
fit / fitting; grin / grinning; grip
/ gripping;
hop / hopping; mix / mixing; nip /
nipping;
pin / pinning; quit / quitting; rip /
ripping;
sit / sitting; tip / tipping; win /
winning
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| 5. |
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If a verb
ends in a stressed vowel + r,
double the r and
add - ing, but if a verb ends
in an
unstressed
vowel + r,
do
not double,
the r:
just add - ing:
confér
/ conferring
defér / deferring
refér
/
referring |
|
ánswer
/ answering
óffer / offering
súffer
/
suffering |
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| 6. |
|
If a verb
ends in a vowel,
add - ing.
Examples:
do / doing; echo / echoing; go / going;
ski / skiing
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| 7. |
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Add - ing to
all other verbs. |
___________________________________________
Special Notes:
| 1. |
|
Note that sometimes two consonant letters
are
needed to spell a single consonant
sound:
ache
bathe
breathe
cache
clothe |
|
loathe
smoothe
wreathe
writhe |
(In
ache, the letters ch are pronounced
k and in
cache, they're
pronounced sh. The letters th are
pronounced
like th in
them.)
___________________________________
Notice also that sometimes
two vowel letters are
needed to spell a single
vowel sound:
achieve
believe
loathe
peeve
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raise
receive
soothe
smoothe |
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| 2. |
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The two
words die and dye have the same sound
(dái)
but
different spellings: die ('become dead') and
dye ('to
color'). For die, the -ing form has i changing
to y before -ing is added. For
dye, the
-ing is added
after the e (which
is not the normal pattern):
| die --->
dying |
|
dye --->
dyeing |
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| 3. |
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The
spellings vowel
+ consonants + e and
vowel +
consonants
show two different vowel
sounds.
Notice that when - ing is added, the first
spelling
drops the e and adds -ing, but the second
spelling
doubles the consonant and adds -ing.
Examples:
file / filing
hope / hoping
mope / moping
tape
/ taping |
|
fill / filling
hop / hopping
mop / mopping
tap
/ tapping |
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