Expressing Likes and Dislikes (Like, Love, Enjoy, Hate + Verb-ing) — Grammar, Examples and Exercises — English 1st Year Middle School — Algerian Curriculum

Expressing Likes and Dislikes (Like, Love, Enjoy, Hate + Verb-ing) — Grammar, Examples and Exercises

Learning Objectives

• Learn verbs to express likes and dislikes (like, love, enjoy, hate, don’t like)
• Use the structure Verb + -ing to talk about activities
• Form affirmative and negative sentences
• Ask and answer questions about preferences

1. Key Verbs for Likes and Dislikes

Verb	Meaning	Strength
Love + V-ing	to love (strong like)	Strong like
Like + V-ing	to like	Simple like
Enjoy + V-ing	to enjoy	Pleasure
Don’t / Doesn’t like + V-ing	to not like	Dislike
Hate + V-ing	to hate	Strong dislike

2. The Grammar Rule

After these verbs, we use the gerund (verb + -ing) form. The structure is:

Subject + like/love/enjoy/hate + Verb-ing + (object)

3. Examples

Affirmative:

• I like playing football. – I enjoy playing football
• She loves reading stories. – She really enjoys reading
• We enjoy listening to music. – We have fun listening
• He likes drawing pictures. – He enjoys drawing
• They love swimming in the sea. – They really like swimming

Negative:

• I don’t like getting up early. – I dislike waking early
• She doesn’t like watching TV. – She dislikes TV
• He hates doing homework. – He really dislikes homework
• We don’t enjoy cooking. – We dislike cooking

4. Questions and Short Answers

Question	Affirmative Answer	Negative Answer
Do you like playing tennis?	Yes, I do.	No, I don’t.
Does she like reading books?	Yes, she does.	No, she doesn’t.
Do they enjoy travelling?	Yes, they do.	No, they don’t.

5. Vocabulary Box: Common Activities

Activity	Verb + ing	Example
Sport	playing sport / running / swimming	I like swimming.
Reading	reading books	She loves reading.
Music	listening to music / singing	He enjoys singing.
Drawing	drawing / painting	We like drawing.
Cooking	cooking	They hate cooking.
Travel	travelling	I love travelling.

6. Exercises

Exercise 1: Complete the sentences with the correct verb form.
1. I like (play) ____________ football after school.
2. She hates (get up) ____________ early in the morning.
3. They enjoy (watch) ____________ cartoons.
4. He doesn’t like (do) ____________ his homework.
5. We love (go) ____________ to the beach.

Exercise 2: Write sentences about your own likes and dislikes.
1. I like ________________________________.
2. I don’t like ________________________________.
3. I love ________________________________.
4. I hate ________________________________.

Exercise 3: Ask and answer with a partner.
– Do you like reading? – Yes, I do. / No, I don’t.
– Does your friend like swimming? – Yes, he/she does. / No, he/she doesn’t.

Summary

To express likes and dislikes in English, we use the verbs like, love, enjoy, don’t like, and hate followed by the verb + -ing (gerund). We form questions with Do/Does. This structure helps us talk about our hobbies, preferences and daily activities in English!

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