A gerund is a form of a verb that ends in -ing that is used as a noun. As you may know, a verb is a word that refers to actions or states of being, and a noun is a word that we use to refer to people, places, things, and ideas. A gerund is like a blend of verbs and nouns. It looks like a verb, but it acts like a noun.
For example, the word swimming is an example of a gerund. We can use the word swimming in a sentence as a noun to refer to the act of moving around in water as in Swimming is fun. When used in sentences, gerunds are treated as third person singular nouns (like he, she, and it).
A gerund phrase is a phrase that includes the gerund, its objects, and its modifiers. Because they are derived from verbs, gerunds can take objects or be modified by adverbs. Just like noun phrases, gerund phrases are treated as nouns in sentences. In the sentence I love carefully collecting action figures, the gerund phrase carefully collecting action figures is the direct object (phrase).
To turn a verb into a gerund, all you need to do is add -ing to the base form of a verb. The base form is the form of a verb you will find if you look up a verb in our dictionary. When making a gerund, there are a few things to watch out for:
Unless a verb ends in -ee or -ie, we drop the final -e in a verb before adding -ing as in joking, taking, and making.
If a verb ends in -ee, add -ing like normal as in agreeing, fleeing, and seeing.
If a verb ends in -ie, replace it with –y before adding -ing as in lying (lie), tying (tie), and dying (die).
Lets study gerund in more detail with help of video:-