ing words in Spanish

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galdcourse2@yahoo.es - 11 Mar 2005 12:40 GMT

Why is it that the Spanish seem to think that by adding "ing" to the
end of a word you get the English equivalent of that word or, indeed, a
word that exists in the English language. For example the word
"footing" for the English "jogging" or "un lifting" for a
"face-lift". Anyway, out of interest, I would like to compile a
list of all these "ing" words to be able to show my students and
give them the proper English equivalent. Any suggestions

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Django Cat - 11 Mar 2005 18:55 GMT

>Why is it that the Spanish seem to think that by adding "ing" to the
>end of a word you get the English equivalent of that word or, indeed, a
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>list of all these "ing" words to be able to show my students and
>give them the proper English equivalent. Any suggestions

It's not just the Spanish - what I know as "The Bastard Gerund" can be
found across Europe. So for the French a camp site is 'un camping'
and a car park 'un parking' (I'm guessing the gender there).
Meanwhile the hydrofoils that ply between Greek islands, named in
hip-English as the "Flying Dolphins", are referred to by locals as
'toh Flying'. There are certain forms in English that speakers of
other languages find cool for some reason; -ing endings appear to be
one of them. We should probably be flattered.

DC

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Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / March 2005

ing words in Spanish