Feelings and Reactions
How to say how you feel with more precision than good and bad — including the -ed / -ing trap that reverses your meaning.
Emotional vocabulary is where learners plateau: happy, sad, angry, tired covers a lot but says very little. And there is one grammar trap that can make you say the opposite of what you mean.
The -ed / -ing trap
-ed describes how a person feels. -ing describes what causes the feeling.
I'm bored. (I feel nothing is happening) I'm boring. (I am a dull person)
That second sentence is a real thing learners say by accident, and it is unfortunate.
| -ed (you feel) | -ing (it causes) |
|---|---|
| interested | interesting |
| excited | exciting |
| tired | tiring |
| confused | confusing |
| surprised | surprising |
| frustrated | frustrating |
| worried | worrying |
| embarrassed | embarrassing |
The lecture was confusing, so I was confused.
Going beyond happy and sad
Happy: pleased · delighted · thrilled · content · relieved Sad: disappointed · upset · down · miserable · devastated Angry: annoyed · irritated · frustrated · furious · livid Afraid: nervous · anxious · worried · terrified Surprised: astonished · stunned · taken aback
These are graded, not synonyms. Annoyed and furious are different sizes of the same emotion, and using furious about a late train marks you as either joking or unreasonable.
Don't intensify a strong word
❌ very furious · ❌ very terrified · ❌ very devastated
Extreme adjectives take absolutely or utterly, not very: ✅ absolutely furious · ✅ utterly devastated
Reacting to what someone tells you
Silence reads as indifference in English. Some standard reactions:
Good news: That's great! · Congratulations! · I'm so pleased for you. Bad news: Oh no. · I'm so sorry to hear that. · That's awful. Surprise: Really? · You're joking! · No way! Sympathy: That must be hard. · I can imagine.
Test yourself
The quiz below turns mainly on -ed versus -ing.