Excited or Exciting? An Easy Fix for Confusing Adjectives

I’m so exciting about…no wait, I’m so excited…wait, what type is it — excited or exciting ? If you receive frustrated with these confusing adjectives in English, you’re not alone!

And we’ve so most of them! Not only is there excited or exciting , but we likewise have:

interested or interesting
bored or boring
relaxed or relaxing

It’s crazy right?

The good news is, today I’ve an easy trick for you really to know when to make use of which adjective.

And, obviously, there’s the opportunity for you really to immediately practice these confusing adjectives by the end so you know how to make use of this trick correctly.

A simple fix for confusing adjectives.

Contents

Let’s start with the adjectives that end with -ing, like boring, interesting, amazing, embarrassing, relaxing, annoying, exciting and confusing.

All of these -ing adjectives describe what something is like.

They describe things, their characteristics, how they are. So, most often we use these with ‘it ‘. As an example:

I don’t want to watch this movie, it is boring!
Did you hear what happened yesterday? It’s amazing!
It was not relaxing at all since the neighbor’s music was annoying!

So, for things, we use -ing. Easy to remember, isn’t it?

We can also say what people or things are like with these -ing adjectives.

So, the neighbors who play loud music when you are trying to relax, you might say they’re annoying or frustrating.

Again we’re discussing what they’re like, their characteristics, so we use -ing adjectives. As an example:

That speaker was so engaging!
She may be so convincing!
They’re always so entertaining!
My neighbors are terribly annoying.

But how do you feel about your annoying neighbors? This is when we need our -ed adjectives.

Now when these specific things happen, like your neighbors playing loud music at 3am on Tuesday, it is annoying, they’re annoying, but how do you feel? This really is when we need our -ed adjectives. It’s annoying, so you are feeling annoyed. It’s frustrating so you are feeling frustrated.

We use -ed adjectives to fairly share feelings.

What this means is the -ed adjectives , like annoyed, frustrated, bored, interested, relaxed, amused, pleased or worried, are utilized to fairly share how people or even animals feel. Only people and animals may have feelings.

As an example:

I’m inspired after that video.
My cat seems annoyed at me.

However, things don’t have feelings, so a movie can’t be bored or amused, because it cannot feel. A person can watch a movie and feel bored or interested or relaxed.

So excited or exciting? Basically, the -ing adjectives cause the -ed feelings.

First something is boring, exciting , amazing, annoying and then you feel bored, excited , amazed or annoyed.

So, remembering this one simple syntax will help you usually decide which adjective you will need:

It’s boring, so I’m bored.
It’s exciting , so I’m excited.
It’s amazing, so she feels amazed.
It’s annoying, so he feels annoyed.

Like: Going on vacation (it) is relaxing, so I’m (I feel) relaxed.

Now, does it really matter if we mix these confusing adjectives up?

Well, you can find definitely situations where mixing them up may cause a lot of confusion.

Like, let’s say there’s a bit of an argument and someone says something mean and nasty to you. You are feeling hurt and upset and want to express your feelings. What you would like to say is ‘I am insulted’but instead you accidentally say ‘I am insulting ‘.

Whoops! Rather than saying how you’re feeling, you’ve described yourself as the kind of person who says mean things!

Excited or exciting? Interested or interesting? Bored or boring? It’s time to practice.

Would you identify the right answers in the sentence below? Share your answers in the comments section.

That hike was exhausting/exhausted.
I am exhausting/exhausted following the awful day I’ve had.
This movie is indeed depressing/depressed.
I’ve been attempting to understand these instructions all night, I’m so frustrating/frustrated.
I didn’t pass the exam, I’m so disappointing/disappointed about it.
I can’t believe she desires to swim with sharks, it’s so frightening/frightened.
I’m feeling so inspiring/inspired, I’m going to start painting at this time!
She thinks English grammar is confusing/confused.
He’s so confusing/confused about where we are meeting tomorrow.
Do you think my presentation is boring/bored?

I’ve got a list here of all of the most frequent ing/ed adjective pairs you’ll ever need.

Positive and Negative Adjective Descriptions & Lists 2021Pick one pair and create a sentence for every word to show the different meanings. I’d love you to talk about below — you will be practicing and helping others learn too.

IT IS… SO… I FEEL