Transitive & Intransitive Verbs

A lot of students find it difficult to differentiate between transitive and intransitive verbs. With this post, I'd like you to learn about these structures and put them into practice asap ;)

Intransitive verbs: subject + verb

If an action concerns only one person or thing, you mention only the person or thing that carries out the action (the subject) and the action itself (the verb). Verbs which describe such actions are called intransitive verbs.

Many intransitive verbs describe physical behaviour or movement:

As the boys arrived, the girls departed.



Transitive verbs: subject + verb + object

Transitive verbs involve not only the subject, but also someone or something else, the object:

She has many friends, but (she) admires Victoria most.


Some transitive verbs can have two objects, an indirect object followed by a direct object:

She brought me my breakfast in bed on a silver tray.


We can also reverse the order of the objects and put the direct object first by inserting the preposition to before the indirect object:

I lent all the money I had to my younger sister.



Intransitive or transitive

Many verbs in English can be used both transitively and intransitively. The object is often not needed when it is obvious what you are talking about. But it may need to be added to clarify what is meant. Compare the following:

I asked him to come in, but he did not enter. He did not enter the room.

When he entered the room, she was reading. She was reading a book about Buddhism.


In these examples, the meaning of the verb does not change whether it is used transitively or intransitively. With certain verbs, the meaning does change. Compare the following:

She runs a bed-and-breakfast establishment in Broadstairs.

The bull was chasing him so he ran as quickly as he could.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv244.shtml