Ron's ESL Blogs

Firstly, what do “stative” and “dynamic” mean?

Dynamic = moving or changing.

Stative = having a state, or existing.

Dynamic verbs are verbs that describe an action, not a state.

For example, “They are crossing the street.”

Stative verbs are verbs that describe a state, not an action.

For example, “I love the winter.”

Here are some more examples of dynamic verbs:
Take, break, eat, jump, work, find, buy, dance, fish

Here are some more examples of stative verbs:
Be, want, hate, know, own, sound, prefer, seem
Now, compare the following two passages.

The first passage uses only dynamic verbs, while the second one uses only stative verb:

1) “We are walking in the forest. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and we are having a good time.”

2) “I like the winter. The sun is in the sky, the birds seem to be on the trees, and we want to stay here forever.”

Note that the first passage describes actual actions, while the second passage really describes states.

Next time, we’ll see how you should properly use dynamic and stative verbs.

Click here to learn more on English verbs.