Grammar: Active and Passive Gerunds

Did you know that you can use gerunds in active AND passive forms? Did you know you can actually use gerunds in past forms as well as present and future? This grammar lesson is for advanced students, so if you’re having a hard time understanding the constructions, get yourself prepared by checking out my lesson on the uses of gerunds (), and my lesson on common verbs followed by gerunds (). Once you feel confident, come back here and challenge yourself even more! TRANSCRIPT Hey, guys. I’m Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on active and passive gerunds. Those of you who don’t know, a gerund is a verb “ing“. And if you’d like to check out the various uses of gerunds and where a gerund can go in a sentence, you can check out my previous lesson on the various uses of gerunds. That lesson is very essential to understanding this one, so please check it out if you haven’t already. In this lesson, we’re going to look at how to use a gerund in a passive form and in an active form. Now, very simply, let’s begin with the easiest which is the active simple which is basically the simple gerund use, just verb “ing“. Now, in this situation, this means you can put the gerund as a subject, as an object, as a subject complement, you can also put it as the object of a preposition, possessive. All that stuff is explained in the other lesson. So, for example, let’s look at these sentences: “I like swimming.“ “Swimming“ is the gerund, it’s the object of the sentence. In the present, I enjoy swimming; I like swimming. “Smoking is bad for you.“ As we know and have discussed, a gerund can be the subject of a sentence, and here, “smoking“ is the subject. “I regret not calling you.“ “Not calling“, “calling“ being the gerund in this situation. So this is your basic gerund use that most students at the advanced level are familiar with at some level or another. Okay, now let’s look at the active past. Okay? Not the active simple, but the active past. If you specifically want to put a gerund into the past, you can do it by using: “having“ a past participle. In this structure, “having“ is actually considered the gerund. So, let’s look at this. “I’m proud of having completed university.“ Now, we call this active past because you are the one who completed university, you are the one who did the action. Right? And you are proud of... And again, we use a gerund here because of “of“ which is a preposition. And I’m proud of having completed university, I’m proud now because I completed university in the past. Okay? And let’s look at another example: “Having gone to college is one of the best things I’ve ever done.“ So here, “having gone“ is considered the active gerund. Again, “having“ is the gerund in this construction. Okay? So having gone to college is one of the best things I’ve ever done. So any time you have: “having done“, “having done“, “having done“ something in the past, you’re actually using a gerund. And in this situation, a passive - sorry - an active past gerund. Now, let’s look over on this side and let’s look at how we use passive gerunds. So this might be new for a lot of students here. Passive simple, basically all you’re doing is you have “being“ p.p. Remember: “passive“ means the person is receiving the action. Okay? So being done... Something is being done to the person. So, for example: “She hates being told what to do.“ “Being“ is the gerund in this construction. She is receiving the action of someone telling her what to do. She hates being told what to do. And, again, if you’re wondering, you know: “Why are you using ’being’? Why not ’to be’? Why are we using ’ing’ and not ’to’ plus the base verb in some of these?“ Basically, it follows the constructions that I describe in the previous video about the uses of gerunds. So, again, another reminder to check that out before this. Okay, another example: “I’m tired of being insulted!“ And, again, you have “of“ which is a preposition, and after a preposition, you have to use a gerund. So I’m tired of being insulted by other people, or by him, by her, by someone. Okay? And, finally: “Being robbed is an awful experience.“ And here, we’re using a gerund as a subject which is possible. Being robbed by someone - passive construction, you receive the action - is an awful experience. So here, you’re speaking in general; here, you’re speaking about the present; here, again, she hates being told what to do in general, in the present. Now, let’s look at how we can refer to the past with this construction. So for the is actually the least common form of all of these that we’re... That are up here just because it’s such a long construction that there are not many opportunities you get to actually use it.