ENJOY + verb-ING – English Grammar Profiler
The phrase “enjoy + ing” is used to describe an activity that someone finds pleasurable. In the sentence “Panda enjoyed reading, building, and solving puzzles,” the word “enjoyed” is in the past tense and is used to describe an action that has already happened. The words “reading,” “building,” and “solving puzzles” are all in the present participle form, which is formed by adding “-ing” to the base form of the verb.
Panda enjoyed reading, building, and solving puzzles.
White Lie
It’s important to note that not all verbs can be used in this construction. Verbs that describe emotions, such as “like,” “love,” and “hate,” can be used with the “-ing” form of a verb, but other verbs may require a different construction. For example, “I want to read this book” uses the infinitive form of the verb “to read” instead of the present participle form.
In the English Grammar Profile, A2 point 28 in the category of VERBS/patterns:
‘enjoy’ followed by the ‘-ing’ form.
enjoy + ing in corpora
Here are search results in iWeb corpus for:
ENJOY _VVG
1 ENJOY WORKING 15550
2 ENJOYED READING 12553 3 ENJOY PLAYING 12353 4 ENJOY READING 11886 5 ENJOY WATCHING 11164 6 ENJOY USING 9039 7 ENJOYED WORKING 7176 8 ENJOY SEEING 6860 9 ENJOY MAKING 5850 10 ENJOYED WATCHING 5513
11 ENJOY SPENDING 5316
I enjoy spending time with my family.
PELIC STUDENT: Chinese level 4 writing class.
12 ENJOYED PLAYING 5295 13 ENJOYS WORKING 4869 14 ENJOYS PLAYING 4628 15 ENJOY GETTING 4608 16 ENJOY GOING 4265 17 ENJOY LEARNING 4239 18 ENJOY TAKING 3662 19 ENJOYED SEEING 3492 20 ENJOY HELPING 3062 21 ENJOY LOOKING 3012 22 ENJOY LISTENING 3008 23 ENJOYED USING 2905 24 ENJOY EATING 2845 25 ENJOYED LEARNING 2513 26 ENJOY EXPLORING 2510 27 ENJOY LIVING 2437 28 ENJOY SHARING 2332 29 ENJOYED MAKING 2330 30 ENJOYS TRAVELING 2293 31 ENJOY HEARING 2145 32 ENJOYED GETTING 2058 33 ENJOY MEETING 2032 34 ENJOY TALKING 2029 35 ENJOY CREATING 1909 36 ENJOY WRITING 1849 37 ENJOY WEARING 1776 38 ENJOYS WATCHING 1710 39 ENJOY COMING 1682
40 ENJOYED SPENDING 1669
41 ENJOYED MEETING 1654 42 ENJOYS HELPING 1582 43 ENJOY HIKING 1563 44 ENJOY TRAVELING 1524 45 ENJOYED GOING 1488 46 ENJOYED TAKING 1430 47 ENJOYED LISTENING 1362 48 ENJOY RIDING 1354 49 ENJOYS HIKING 1295 50 ENJOY SHOPPING 1268 51 ENJOY TRYING 1254 52 ENJOY TEACHING 1244 53 ENJOYS WRITING 1237 54 ENJOYED LOOKING 1235 55 ENJOYS SHARING 1201 56 ENJOYS GOING 1189 57 ENJOY VISITING 1166 58 ENJOYED HEARING 1136 59 ENJOYED TALKING 1112 60 ENJOY COOKING 1087 61 ENJOYED WRITING 1084 62 ENJOY WALKING 1070 63 ENJOY DRIVING 1044 64 ENJOYS TAKING 1026 65 ENJOY BROWSING 1022 66 ENJOYS TEACHING 1003 67 ENJOYS READING 1001
68 ENJOY GIVING 995
He is kind and enjoys giving people things or helping them.
PELIC STUDENT: Chinese level 2 writing class.
69 ENJOY SITTING 973 70 ENJOYS MAKING 964 71 ENJOYING PLAYING 961 72 ENJOY INTERACTING 915
73 ENJOYS SPENDING 906
74 ENJOY RUNNING 902 75 ENJOYS GETTING 839 76 ENJOY FINDING 819 77 ENJOYS EXPLORING 811 78 ENJOYING WATCHING 787 79 ENJOY DRINKING 786 80 ENJOY STAYING 780 81 ENJOYED CREATING 766 82 ENJOY PUTTING 755 83 ENJOY SHOOTING 753 84 ENJOY VIEWING 751 85 ENJOY HANGING 732 86 ENJOYED SHARING 702 87 ENJOYS LEARNING 694 88 ENJOYING USING 681 89 ENJOYS SEEING 672 90 ENJOYING WORKING 660 91 ENJOYED LIVING 657 92 ENJOYING READING 645
93 ENJOY KEEPING 641
I started writing letters to my grandma last year
and I found that I really enjoy keeping in touch
with people that way.
apracticalwedding.com
94 ENJOYS CREATING 633 95 ENJOYED EXPLORING 628 96 ENJOY RECEIVING 625 97 ENJOY RELAXING 622 98 ENJOYS USING 620 99 ENJOY SINGING 567
100 ENJOY KNOWING 561
A2 Verb-ing:
keeping, receiving, sharing, spending, trying