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Sense and Action verbs

See= 'Can you see that airplane?' 

Look = 'She looked at the painting carefully.' 

Hear = 'I heard the phone ringing.' 

Sound = 'She sounds like Madonna.' 

Feel = 'Abdul felt his chair move.' 

Taste= 'Can you taste this soup for me?' 

Watch = 'They watched the film together.' 

Smell = 'Cigarette smoke smells terrible.' 

 base and – ing verbs

Compare these two sentences to see the difference in meaning between base and – ing  verbs. The

 sense verb is ‘saw’ (see). 

'I saw her play football.' = I saw the whole game of football/ I saw the whole action.

'I saw her playing football' = When I saw her she was playing. We assume that the speaker did

not watch the whole game. The game probably continued after the speaker stopped watching.

describing things using sense verbs and adjectives

We can use sense verbs with adjectives to describe our personal opinions and thoughts about

things:

'This cake tastes delicious.' 

'The seawater feels warm.' 

'You look tired.' 

'Fresh bread smells great.' 

8/12/2019 Sense Action Vbs

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'This new band sound original' 

describing things using sense verbs and nouns

We use subject + sense verb + like + object  to compare the similarity between two nouns. For

example:

'Your father looks like Father Christmas.' 

Your father (subject) + looks (sense verb) + like+ Father Christmas (object) 

'Perfume smells like flowers.' 

'This tastes like dog food!' 

 Link: 'What are auxiliary verbs?'  

  Opera ___ boring.

Correct! 

like

tastes

smells

sounds

  Beer ___ bitter.

Correct! 

sounds

tastes

looks

feels

  My massage ___ relaxing.

Correct! 

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felt

tasted

sounded

smelt

  Fireworks ____ giant flowers.

Correct! 

looks like

looks

look like

look

  Gupta ___ his dog barking.

Correct! 

tasted

smelt

looks

heard

  This soap ____ lemon.

Correct! 

smell like

smells like

smelt

smell

  You ___ your sister.

Correct! 

like

looks like

look like

looks

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  Can you ____ my bag for me?

Correct! 

watch

like watchinglwatched

watching

  The sand ___.

Correct! 

feeling dry

feels like dry

feel dry

feels dry

  The scenery ___.

Correct! 

look beautiful

looks like beautiful

looks beautiful

look like beautiful

  Cookies ___.

Correct! 

taste delicious

taste like delicious

tastes like delicious

tastes delicious

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‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘taste’, ‘smell’, ‘feel’ are verbs that describe senses. 

-These verbs aren’t usually used in continuous forms. They are often used with ‘can’. 

It smells of smoke in here. NOT It’s smelling of smoke in here.

I can’t see anything. It’s too dark. 

4. Stative verbs describe things that are not actions.

He smells of fish.

He’s smelling the fish. 

The second sentence is an action –  not a state. The man wants to know if the fish is OK to eat.

I think we should go to Croatia for our holiday this year.

Sorry, what did you say? I was thinking about my holiday.

The first sentence is an opinion but the second sentence is an action.