WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INTERESTING AND INTERESTED?

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INTERESTING AND INTERESTED?

You can think of adjectives like this that come from verbs as either “active” (-ing - doing something to a person ->) or “passive” (-ed - the person has something done to them <-). If someone is “interesting” it’s as if they are acting on other people and making them curious about them: “She’s an interesting person (-> to me)”. If someone else is “interested” in that person, it’s as if they have been acted upon and made curious about them: “I’m interested (<-) in her”. So we can say A is interesting to B (->), or we can say B is interested in A (<-).

In the dialogue, Kate says she’s not interested (<-) in golf; you could also say golf is not interesting (->) to her.

Learners of English can get the two forms confused. You can say “She is exciting” or “She’s excited”, but they mean quite different things. At the end of the dialogue, the golfer says “I am very exciting to win the tournament”. Is that right or wrong?

Of course, if you know another language, like French or Spanish, the equivalent pairs are “intéressé/intéressant”, “excité/excitant”, or “interesado/interesante”, “emocionado/emocionante”. Maybe that helps.