state verbs

what are state verbs? 4.363635 Average: 4.4 (11 votes) Wed, 09/03/2008 - 00:00 — Chris McCarthy Grammar '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 ‘I’m loving it’ even though McDonalds 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 Senses: 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 posession '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’   Link: How to use 'if' in conditional sentences Link: More help with State Verbs     I am disliking garlic. correctincorrect I prefer winter to summer. incorrectcorrect She is reading a good book. correctincorrect I thinking about work. correctincorrect Please don't forgetting me. correctincorrect He is knowing him for a long time. correctincorrect I am hate school. correctincorrect You seem tired. correctincorrect She own a cat. incorrectcorrect They belong to the music club. correctincorrect Do you believing me? correctincorrect They need you. incorrectcorrect