1. Gerunds and Gerund Phrases

2. Verbals and Verbal Phrases: A Review
Remember, when verbs do what they’re told, they are an action or a state of being…
John, a 10th grader, plays Playstation 2 until PS3 comes out on the market.
Easy! PLAYS is our verb, right?

3. Verbals and Verbal Phrases: A Review
But sometimes, verbs act like NOUNS, which as we all know, can be confusing….
Playing Playstation 2 is something that John, a tenth grader likes.
Now….”playing” is acting like a noun
Our verb in the sentence becomes “likes”
Crazy!

4. Gerunds Gerunds always, always, always end in –ing.
They act like nouns in a sentence.
So they can be:
Subjects, Direct objects, Indirect Objects, and Objects of a preposition.

5. Gerunds Let’s try a few…. To swim Swimming To eat Eating To dance
Dancing

6. Gerunds Okay, now a few examples within sentences…
Leaving one’s school during senior year is painful.
Gerund: leaving
The result was winning the football game with a safety in the fourth quarter.
Gerund: winning

7. Gerunds vs Present Participles
A gerund ends in –ing and acts like a noun in a sentence.
A present participle ends in –ing and acts like an adjective in a sentence

8. Gerunds vs Present Participles
Francisco’s first love is swimming.
Swimming is a gerund
Francisco’s swimming coach was eaten by a great white shark
Swimming is a participle, it modifies “coach”

9. The “it” test
One last thing….a trick if you will…try to replace –ing verbs with “it”
If the sentence makes sense, you’ve got a gerund
If not, it’s a present participle….