Gerunds in English

Today we are going to look at gerunds in English. Firstly, what is a gerund?

Well, the answer is that it is the “-ing” form of the verb.

Look at some examples of the gerund as the subject of a sentence:

Reading helps you learn more.

Flying makes me nervous.

Cleaning up after yourself is good manners.

Let's now take a look at the “gerund” as a complement after the verb “to be”:

One of the hardest things in life is studying.

One of my main duties in my old job was attending meetings.

One of life's pleasures is having breakfast in bed.

Now look at some examples of the gerund after a preposition:

He's very good at communicating with people.

You can learn a lot by listening to your teachers.

There's no point in sitting down as the meeting will be over soon.

Some verbs, including some phrasal verbs, are followed by another verb in the gerund form. Here are some examples:

I love going to the cinema at the weekend.

He avoided talking to her at the party.

You'd better give up smoking. It's bad for you.

After the race had finished she kept on running.

I ended up staying at the party until the end.

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