Page 21 - Grammar_Programme

Let’s start with ‘action’ verbs:

To find out if a sentence contains an action verb, look at each word in the
sentence and ask yourself if the word tells you something that a person or

thing can do? Look at the sentence below:-

Ben painted the old door.

Ben can’t ‘door’ something or ‘old’ something – so, ‘painted’ is the action

verb in this sentence.
Other examples:

Samira wrote a letter. Mr Gregory loves curry.

ACTION VERB

Now let’s look at ‘being’ verbs:

Look at the sentence below:-

Len and Paul are my friends.

The verb in this sentence is ‘are’. In this example, the verb does not tell
you what Len and Paul are doing, it just lets you know what they are (my
friends).

‘Being’ verbs are usually forms of the verb ‘to be’ – they tell you what
something is or what is happening.

‘Being’ verbs do not make sense on their own and so they need to link with
another word to make sense.

John is. This doesn’t make sense on its own – we’re missing some
information.

John is tall. Now we have added a describing word and it makes
sense!

They often link with ‘action’ verbs as in the examples below:-

John is thinking. John is playing football.

NOTE: ‘Being’ verbs are often called ‘linking verbs’ since they have
to link with another word or words to make sense.

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