What is the Gerund and its Rules with Examples

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What is the Gerund and its Rules with Examples

Hello friends ! Today we are going to tell you about The Gerund Rules with Examples. Today we will know what is Gerund? And how to use in a sentence? And what rules have to be kept in mind while using it? We are going to study all these in detail. So let’s understand :

What is the Gerund

To understand Gerund, let us first look at some examples :

01.	Walking is good for health.
02.	Learning is a part of our life.
03.	I like reading.

Friends! After reading these examples carefully, you find that in sentence-1, walking is formed by adding “ing” with the verb walk. It is also a verb as well as noun. Because it is also used as a subject in a sentence.

Similarly, in sentence – 2, reading is formed by adding “ing” with the verb read and it is also a noun because it is used as an object in the sentence.

In this way we find that walking and reading is both verb and noun. This makes it clear that when a verb acts like a noun, it is called Gerund.

In other words, we can say that gerund is a form of the verb with “ing” and it acts like a verb as well as noun, i.e. it is partly verb and partly noun.

Some important Rules :

Rule : 1.

Friends! There are also some verbs which are immediately followed by gerund such as:

enjoy	dislike	finish	involve
risk	escape	mind	miss
resent	avoid	resist	defer

When the above verbs are used in a sentence, immediately after these, gerund (form + ing) is used and no noun or pronoun is used between the verb and gerund. Here are some examples to understand :

01.	We enjoy visiting historical Places.
02.	You should not escape paying income tax.
03.	She don’t mind taking her pen.
04.	I have finished reading a lesson.
05.	He avoids speaking English.

Rule : 2.

Some Verbs you have to keep in mind :

save	keep	appreciate	excuse
forgive	prevent	pardon	prohibit

Friends! Let me tell you that these are the verbs after which gerund is used but not immediately after. That is, a Pronoun or Pronoun + Preposition or Possessive Adjective is used between the verb and gerund. We can understand this with the following structures:

Sub +	verb +	pronoun +	gerund.
Sub +	verb +	pronoun + preposition +	gerund.
Sub +	verb +	possessive adjective +	gerund.

Let us now understand with the help of some examples :

01.	She forgive me waiting for two hours.
02.	We saved her from drowning.
03.	I appreciate your making efforts to win the match.

Rule : 3.

Some words and phrases are such that after which gerund is also used like :

be used to	take to	give up	afraid
confident	aware	fond	good at
is no use of	is worth	accused to	tired of/ with

For Example :

01.	I am confident of speaking English.
02.	She is fond of reading books.
03.	He must give up smoking.
04.	She is good at singing.
05.	I am aware of working hard.

Rule : 4.

Nouns or pronouns used before Gerund should always be used in possessive case such as :

Sr.	Incorrect	Correct
01.	She is against me cooking food.	She is against my cooking food.

Note here that cooking is used as a gerund, which is formed by adding “ing” with verb cook. We told you that Nouns or pronouns used before Gerund should always be used in possessive case. The sentence uses me before gerund which is incorrect. It is okay to use possessive case my in place of me here.

But friends! Keep in mind that if there is an inanimate noun before the gerund in the sentence,
its possessive case is not made, such as :

01.	There is no chance of bus arriving here.

Rule : 5.

When definite article the is used before a gerund and of is used after it, it is called Verbal Noun. To understand this, we take an example:

Sr.	Incorrect
01.	The reading of novel is more difficult than reading a story.

Here the reading in this sentence is a gerund and the definite article the is used first and later of is used. Hence the reading of is a verbal noun. Other gerund is also used in this sentence with Verbal noun which is incorrect. So you should keep in mind that :

Never use any other gerund with verbal noun in a sentence. Hence the correct sentence as per rules is :

Sr.	Correct
01.	The reading of novel is more difficult than the reading of a story.
OR	Reading a novel is more difficult than reading a story.

The sentence can be corrected in two ways, either put the before and later of after the gerund reading.
OR in the verbal noun (The reading of), “the” and “of” should also be removed.

The adjective is used to describe the attribute of a verbal noun,
while the adverb is used to describe the attribute of a gerund such as :

Sr.	Correct
01.	The regular studying of books will improve our marks in exam.
02.	Studying books regularly will improve our marks in exam.

You saw How is Gerund used in a sentence. Today we learned about what is Gerund and its special rules. Hopefully, now you will not have any confusion in the use of Gerund and Participle.

We talked about participle in previous notes. If you do not know, then you can understand clearly the difference only after reading participle and then Gerund.

A Request :

Friends! Hope you have got a good idea about “The Gerund Rules with Examples” today. You can understand both Gerund and participle by comparing them together. Only then will you be able to understand their use.

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