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sâmbătă, 12 aprilie 2014

Stative verbs (verbe care de obicei nu pot fi puse la timp continuu)

'They love it' or 'They are loving it'?
When a verb describes a state and not an action  we do not use the continuous tense. For example, 'play' is an action so we can say 'playing' whereas 'be' is a fixed state which does not change: 'To be, or not to be'.
Grammatically it is not correct to say "Im loving it" even though McDonald's have made this expression famous. 'Love' is a state verb and so we should say "I love it".
State verbs generally fall into 4 groups:
Emotion: love, hate, want, need
Possession: have, own, want, belong
Sense: see, hear, smell, seem
Thought: know, believe, remember
Here are some more examples of state verbs:
State Verbs
doubt dislike understand suspect
loathe own belong know
like need want seem
mean believe forget remember
prefer hate love see

some verbs can be both state and action verbs

Some words can be state verbs and action verbs. The meaning of these verbs is then different. Take a look at these:
'I have a car.'state verb showing possession
'I am having a bath.'action verb which, in this case, means 'taking'.
'I think you are cool.'state verb meaning 'in my opinion'.
'I am thinking about buying a motorbike.'action verb meaning 'considering'.

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