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Fun Easy English Classroom July 21
 

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Learn about
past participle
adjectives
Past Participle Adjectives

Today you are going to learn about past participle adjectives an important part of English grammar.
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Grammar: Past Participle Adjectives

Definition of a past participle adjective.
  • A past participle adjective:
  • indicates a past or completed action or time
  • is formed from a verb using the perfect aspect and the passive voice
  • does not take an object
  • is often called the -ed form
  • often has the same form as the simple past of the verb
  • Note: only transitive verbs can use their past participles as adjectives
Past Participle Adjective Examples
  • The bored student.
  • The confused class. (all the students)
  • The chicken has eaten. (perfect aspect)
  • The chicken was eaten. (passive voice)
  • The following words are past participle adjectives
  • verb - present participle - past participle
  • aggravate - aggravating - aggravated
  • alarm - alarming - alarmed
  • amaze - amazing - amazed
  • amuse - amusing - amused
  • annoy - annoying - annoyed
  • appall - appalling - appalled
  • astonish - astonishing - astonished
  • astound - astounding - astounded
  • bewilder - bewildering - bewildered
  • bore - boring - bored
  • calm - calming - calmed
  • captivate - captivating - captivated
  • challenge - challenging - challenged
  • charm - charming - charmed
  • comfort - comforting - comforted
  • compel - compelling - compelled
  • confuse - confusing - confused
  • convince - convincing - convinced
  • depress - depressing - depressed
  • devastate - devastating - devastating
  • disappoint - disappointing - disappointed
  • disgust - disgusting - disgusted
  • distract - distracting - distracted
  • distress - distressing - distressed
  • disturb - disturbing - disturbed
  • embarrass - embarrassing - embarrassed
  • enchant - enchanting - enchanted
  • encourage - encouraging - encouraged
  • entertain - entertaining - entertained
  • excite - exciting - excited
  • frighten - frightening - frightened
  • humiliate - humiliating - humiliated
  • infuriate - infuriating - infuriated
  • inspire - inspiring - inspired
  • insult - insulting - insulted
  • interest - interesting - interested
  • intimidate - intimidating - intimidated
  • intrigue - intriguing - intrigued
  • mislead - misleading - misled
  • mystify - mystifying - mystified
  • overwhelm - overwhelming - overwhelmed
  • please - pleasing - pleased
  • puzzle - puzzling - puzzled
  • refresh - refreshing - refreshed
  • relax - relaxing - relaxed
  • reward - rewarding - rewarded
  • satisfy - satisfying - satisfied
  • shock - shocking - shocked
  • sicken - sickening - sickened
  • startle - startling - startled
  • surprise - surprising - surprised
  • tempt - tempting - tempted
  • terrify - terrifying - terrified
  • threaten - threatening - threatened
  • tire - tiring - tired
  • welcome - welcoming - welcomed
  • worry - worrying - worried
Fun Easy English Grammar Lessons
 
Video: Grammar Past Participle Adjectives
 
Video: Grammar Past Participle Adjectives Cartoon
 
Video Information: Grammar Past Participle Adjectives Cartoon
  • The -ing form of the verb expresses the cause of the feeling.
  • The -ed form of the verb expresses the result.
  • In the case of the verb "to bore" Akira said she is BORING which means Akira is actually BORING and not the class.
  • Akira should say because this class is BORING, I am BORED, or simply I am BORED.
  • The class is the cause of her feeling, so it is described with an -ing form, in this case BORING.
  • Her feeling, or the result, is described with an -ed form, in this case BORED.
  • Basically you should remember that things can only be described with the -ing form because things cannot produce feelings.
  • People can be described with either the -ing or -ed forms because they can produce feelings in other people or experience feelings themselves.
From YOUR Teacher: Past Participle Adjectives

Hopefully all the information from Akira and Aleem in the video made understanding past participle adjectives a little easier.
 
Additional Lessons
About These Lessons

The following classroom lessons are great for students who want additional listening and reading practice.
  • Travel America - Beginner Level. Do you love America and American English? Learn before you travel. Facts and other cool stuff about your favorite U.S. state. Great English reading practice.
Travel America - Minnesota
(Beginner - Reading)

Learn some interesting facts and read interesting stories about Minnesota.
Minnesota

The "Land of 10,000 Lakes," Minnesota got its nickname because there are more than 12,000 lakes throughout the state. Its name comes from the Dakota (Sioux) word for the Minnesota River's "sky-tinted waters." The Minnesota Territory was formed in 1849 from what had been part of the Northwest Territory, and Minnesota joined the Union in 1858. The state flower is the pink and white lady's slipper, and the capital is St. Paul.
Flag of MinnesotaMinnesota State Flag


The present state flag of Minnesota was adopted in 1957.

Minnesota's flag is royal blue with the state seal displayed in the center. Three dates are woven into a wreath surrounding the seal which represent the year of statehood (1858); the year Fort Snelling was established (1819); and the year the original flag was adopted(1893).

The nineteen stars arranged outside the wreath symbolize the fact that Minnesota was the 19th state to enter the Union after the original thirteen. The largest star represents the North Star and Minnesota.

The state motto on the seal is French, "L’étoile du Nord" meaning "the star of the North" (the basis for Minnesota's nickname as "The North Star State"). The seal has much symbolism:

The sun on the western horizon signifies the flat plains covering much of Minnesota.

The native American on horseback is riding due south and represents the native American heritage of Minnesota.

The tools: the native's horse and spear, and the pioneer’s axe, rifle, and plow represent tools that were used for hunting and labor.

The stump is a symbol of the importance of the lumber industry in Minnesota.

The Mississippi River and St. Anthony Falls are depicted to note the importance of these resources in transportation and industry.

The cultivated ground and the plow symbolize the importance of agriculture in Minnesota.

Trees: beyond the falls, three pine trees represent the state tree and the three great pine regions of Minnesota–St. Croix, Mississippi, and Lake Superior.
Source: State Symbols USA
 
The great seal of the state of MinnesotaMinnesota State Facts

Picture: state seal of Minnesota
State Capital St. Paul
Nickname North Star State / Gopher State / Bread and Butter State
Motto L'Etoile du Nord (The star of the north.)
Statehood May 11, 1858 (32th)
Origin of Name Based on the Dakota Sioux Indian word for "sky-tinted water," referring to the Minnesota River or the state's many lakes.
Largest Cities Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Bloomington, Duluth, Rochester
Border States Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin
Area 79,617 sq. mi., 14th largest
State Bird Common Loon
State Flower Pink and white lady's-slipper (cypripedium reginae)
State Tree Red Pine (pinus resinosa)
State Song Hail! Minnesota
Map showing the location of MinnesotaTravel and tourism site for Minnesota - This state travel and territorial tourism site provides ideas for your vacations, meetings, and more.
Minnesota Stories
 
Minnehaha Steamboat

How can you extend a streetcar line onto a lake? With a steamboat, of course.

The restored steamboat in the picture was originally one of a fleet of vessels that extended the streetcar lines of the Twin Cities -- Minneapolis and St. Paul -- out into Lake Minnetonka. Built in 1905 by the Twin City Rapid Transit Company to serve new communities around the lakeshore, the boats were designed to resemble streetcars. They were painted canary yellow, red, and green, the same colors as streetcars, and the seats and benches below decks also matched the streetcars.

As the automobile became the favored mode of transportation, ridership on the boats declined, and they were scuttled in 1926 in the deeper waters of the lake. Scuttling means to cut or open a hole in a ship's hull to sink the ship. Fifty-four years later, the Minnehaha was brought to the surface for restoration. And, on May 25, 1996, the Minnehaha sailed on her maiden voyage from Excelsior to Wayzata, a festive occasion that signaled her return to Lake Minnetonka.
 
Remembering the Little Red Schoolhouse

Can you imagine going to a school that has only one room and where all the kids, no matter how old, are in the same class? That was the situation in many schools across the country, especially in rural (country) communities.

Becker County, a rural farm community in Minnesota, decided to get together and create a historical record of the one-room schoolhouse experience. The citizens included photographs of old school buildings, interiors, and students. They also found antique school texts, teaching materials and state examinations for the teaching certificate, a teacher's bell and an old-fashioned lunch pail -- all from the first half of the 20th century. Together these materials preserve a nearly vanished educational experience.

Today, only a single one-room schoolhouse remains in Minnesota, in Northwest Angle, at the northernmost tip of the state and one of the coldest places in the lower 48 states. The Angle School has about a dozen students, and children often arrive by boat from nearby and not so nearby islands. During the winter, some students travel daily to school on a snowmobile. Would you like to go to a one-room school?
 
Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant

Have you read any of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder or seen the TV show "Little House on the Prairie"?

Laura Ingalls Wilder, well-known author of the Little House series of books, was born in the big woods of Wisconsin. When she was 7, she and her family traveled by covered wagon and moved to the prairie land of Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Her family was one of the pioneer families who settled there, following the Homestead Act of 1862, which encouraged Americans to travel west and settle.

Today, the people of Walnut Grove celebrate Wilder's books every July with the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant. The Pageant is a family-oriented outdoor drama with all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie book characters. An actress playing a 70-year-old Laura narrates the story, reflecting on her life in Walnut Grove during the 1870s. If you've never read any of the Little House books, you should, because you can learn a lot about life in America during the 1870s.
 
Spam Festival

Have you ever eaten Spam? Do you know what it is?

Austin, Minnesota, is home to the Hormel Company's plant that produces Spam, a canned meat product popular with Americans. Created in 1937, some of the first commercials aired on TV were for Spam.

Spam even has a mascot -- Spammy, the miniature pig. In 1991, for its 100th anniversary, Hormel Foods opened the First Century Museum. The exhibit of Spam memorabilia quickly became the most popular. In the United States alone, 3.6 cans of Spam are consumed every second, making it the number one product in its category (canned meat) by far. On the island of Guam, more than eight cans of Spam are consumed by every person each year.

More than 60 years after it was first produced, Spam is still enormously popular. More than 5 billion cans have been sold!
 
Anoka, Minnesota: The Halloween Capital of the World

Did you know that Halloween has a capital? Anoka, Minnesota, calls itself the "Halloween Capital of the World," as it is one of the first cities in the United States to put on a Halloween celebration that discourages people from playing tricks or causing trouble.

In 1920, a weeklong celebration was started in Anoka in an effort to take the trick out of trick-or-treat. The Grand Day Parade includes a Mass Band, made up of bands from four high schools. Another featured event is the Gray Ghost 5K Run, inspired by sightings of Bill Andberg, a marathon runner in his 70s whose gray-clad ghostly figure can often be seen running through a local cemetery.

There are many competitions during the week, including a pumpkin bake-off and one for best Halloween house decorations. Most participants wear their Halloween costumes. Do you suppose people wear the same costumes all week long?
 
Ironworld Discovery Center

Why would a state need millions of trees? In Minnesota it was because much of the land had been mined for iron ore and was stripped bare of trees and other forms of nature.

So, in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, a federal government program called the Civilian Conservation Corps planted more than 25 million trees in Minnesota. More than 4,000 men between the ages of 18 and 25 were hired for the project. In addition to the trees, the Corps workers built hundreds of miles of hiking trails, roads, and canoe ports that citizens have come to love.

Even though they planted trees to restore the land, Minnesota wanted to preserve the history of its iron ranges, so it established the Ironwood Discovery Center in Chisholm. Open-pit mining was a big business in Minnesota until the mid-1970s. In 1900, the Mesabi Iron Range was the largest iron-mining area in the world, and during World War II, Minnesota produced more than 75 percent of the iron used in the war effort. As the iron deposits ran out, another form of mining replaced it, which extracts iron in a complicated mechanized process. The end of the open pits also spelled the end of a way of life for many Minnesotans. The Discovery Center helps people learn about that period.
 
Logging in Minnesota

Think about how much wood you could fit into a train's freight car. Imagine how many wood logs you would need to fill up 240,000 cars. That's a lot of cars, but that's just how many were filled in Minnesota in 1905.

Historically, logging has been an important part of Minnesota's economy. Clearing the massive conifer forests of Minnesota continued into the first decades of the 20th century, when production peaked in 1905. In fact, so much lumber was sawed in the state that year that it would have filled about 240,000 freight cars! During the boom period of 1890 to 1910, lumber companies harvested lumber valued at $1 billion in Minnesota.

Each winter season, logging crews set up camps in the forest areas. The crews were made up of relatively poor and unskilled workers. Many of them were recent immigrants from northern Europe who were barely making a living. Workers received low wages and toiled long hours under dangerous conditions.

Technological advances changed and industrialized logging. Horses were replaced with small tractors, and loggers began to use gasoline-powered chain saws. Lumber was sent to paper mills that were built along the Mississippi, Rainy, and St. Louis rivers. By the 1970s, the industrialization of an agricultural industry was complete.
Source: Library of Congress
National Forests, Parks, and Monuments of Minnesota

The following is a description of national forests, parks, and monuments in the state of Minnesota. If you plan to visit or live in Minnesota for awhile then you should definitely plan to visit some of these fantastic places.
 
National Forests
Chippewa

With 1,300 lakes and ponds, 925 mi (1,489 km) of rivers, and 440,000 acres (180,000 ha) of wetlands, there are many opportunities for boating and fishing in this forest. There are over 180 nesting pairs of bald eagles as well as Canada lynx, and sandhill cranes here.
Superior

Superior National Forest includes the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which has over 1,500 mi (2,400 km) of canoe routes, 1,000 lakes, and 2,200 designated campsites. Eagle Mountain, the highest point in Minnesota at 2,301 ft (701 m), is also in the forest.
 
National Parks
Voyageurs

This park protecting four lakes near the Canada–US border is a site for canoeing, kayaking, and fishing. The park also preserves a history populated by Ojibwe Native Americans, French fur traders called voyageurs, and gold miners. Formed by glaciers, the region features tall bluffs, rock gardens, islands, bays, and several historic buildings.
 
National Monuments
Grand Portage

The Grand Portage itself is an 8.5-mile (13.7 km) footpath which bypasses a set of waterfalls on the Pigeon River near Lake Superior. The region was a vital trade route and center of fur trade activity as well as an Anishinaabeg Ojibwe heritage site.
Pipestone

This monument preserves traditional catlinite quarries used to make ceremonial pipes, vitally important to traditional Plains Indian culture. The quarries are sacred to the Sioux and Lakota people and are historically neutral territory where enrolled citizens of all tribes can quarry the stone.
Travel America
Travel America

Do you love America and American English? Learn before you travel. Facts and other cool stuff about your favorite U.S. state. Visit the Fun Easy English Travel America pages. Read about the beautiful National Forests, Parks, and Monuments. Great English reading practice.
Drive America

Planning to drive in America? Learn the rules and regulations. Great English reading practice.
 
Additional Information
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Improve Your Pronunciation by Training Your Ears

The complete lesson includes an audio program explaining this topic, the script for the audio program, a words in this story section, and other important information.
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Improve Your Long-Term Memory by Spacing Practice

The lesson includes an audio program explaining this topic, the script for the audio program, a words in this story section, and other important information.
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Audio Program

Listen to the audio program explaining this topic.
 
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