Feelings and Reactions
How to say how you feel with more precision than good and bad — including the -ed / -ing trap that reverses your meaning.
Emotional vocabulary is where learners plateau: happy, sad, angry, tired covers a lot but says very little. And there is one grammar trap that can make you say the opposite of what you mean.
The -ed / -ing trap
-ed describes how a person feels. -ing describes what causes the feeling.
I'm bored. (I feel nothing is happening)
I'm boring. (I am a dull person)
That second sentence is a real thing learners say by accident, and it is unfortunate.
| -ed (you feel) | -ing (it causes) |
|---|---|
| interested | interesting |
| excited | exciting |
| tired | tiring |
| confused | confusing |
| surprised | surprising |
| frustrated | frustrating |
| worried | worrying |
| embarrassed | embarrassing |
| disappointed | disappointing |
| shocked | shocking |
The lecture was confusing, so I was confused.
The prepositions that follow are fixed too: interested in, worried about, excited about, surprised by, disappointed with, annoyed with someone / about something.
Going beyond happy and sad
Happy: pleased · delighted · thrilled · content · relieved Sad: disappointed · upset · down · miserable · devastated Angry: annoyed · irritated · frustrated · furious · livid Afraid: nervous · anxious · worried · terrified Surprised: astonished · stunned · taken aback
These are graded, not synonyms. Annoyed and furious are different sizes of the same emotion, and using furious about a late train marks you as either joking or unreasonable.
Two worth separating carefully: upset in English means hurt or distressed, not angry; and nervous means anxious about something ahead, not irritable.
Don't intensify a strong word
❌ very furious · ❌ very terrified · ❌ very devastated
Extreme adjectives take absolutely or utterly, not very: ✅ absolutely furious · ✅ utterly devastated
The everyday idioms
Real conversation runs on these more than on the adjective list:
| Phrase | Means |
|---|---|
| I'm fed up with it. | tired of it, had enough |
| I'm over the moon. | delighted |
| I'm stressed out. | under pressure |
| I'm in a good / bad mood. | temporary state |
| It got on my nerves. | irritated me |
| I couldn't believe it. | I was astonished |
| It cheered me up. | made me feel better |
And note feel like + -ing for wanting something: I feel like going home. · I don't feel like cooking.
Talking about other people
You rarely know how someone feels, so English hedges it:
- She seems upset. · He looks exhausted.
- She sounds annoyed. (on the phone)
- He doesn't seem very happy about it.
Note seem and look take an adjective directly — she seems tired, not "she seems to be tired" in ordinary speech.
Reacting to what someone tells you
Silence reads as indifference in English. Some standard reactions:
Good news: That's great! · Congratulations! · I'm so pleased for you. Bad news: Oh no. · I'm so sorry to hear that. · That's awful. Surprise: Really? · You're joking! · No way! Sympathy: That must be hard. · I can imagine.
React first, ask second. The expected shape is a reaction then a question: Oh no — what happened? Going straight to the question sounds like an interrogation, and going straight to advice sounds like you weren't listening.
A colleague has had a bad week
A: How's it going?
B: Honestly? I'm fed up. The project got cancelled on Monday.
A: Oh no, I'm sorry to hear that. That must be really frustrating.
B: It is. Two years of work. I'm more disappointed than angry, really.
A: I can imagine. Do you feel like getting a coffee?
An idiom, an -ing adjective for the situation and an -ed one for the person, two standard reactions, and feel like + -ing to change the subject kindly.
Test yourself
The quiz below turns mainly on -ed versus -ing.