State vs. Action Verbs

Verbs of State versus Action Verbs

Verbs of state are usually used in the present simple, and they refer to states and conditions that are facts/opinions that do not change.  State verbs are not used in the continuous tense, but instead they are used in the simple tense.  An example of a state verb would be describing a person as “friendly.  This characteristic is usually a permanent personality trait, and it is not something that changes from day to day.

The opposite of a state verb is an activity verb.  The activity can be either mental or physical.  Activity verbs describe an action that is taking place, but it is not a permanent action.  An example of this would be paying a store clerk for a purchase; this activity is temporary and will be finished shortly.

State verbs usually fall into one of four categories, and this is easily remembered from the word PEST:  Possession, emotion, sense, or thought.  It is not important that you understand which of these categories a verb fits into.  You only need to remember that state verbs usually talk about possession, emotion, sense, or thought.

Some examples of state verbs are in the table below.

Some 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 either a state or an activity verb, depending on how they are used in sentences.  For example,

“I think you are nice”  

uses “think” as a state verb.  It describes a characteristic the speaker believes to be generally true all the time.  On the other hand,

“I’m thinking about your question”

 uses “think” as an action verb:  The speaker clearly is thinking about something, so it is an activity.

Additional information can be found at this URL:

http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/what-are-state-verbs