The two types of participles in English are:

Present participle adjectives are formed by adding the suffix '-ing' to the base form of the verb. These adjectives often indicate that something is causing a feeling or performing an action. Look at the examples:

Past participle adjectives are usually formed by adding the suffix '-ed' or '-en' to verbs. However, sometimes the past participle form is irregular. These adjectives show that the noun or pronoun they modify undergoes the experience or feeling denoted by the past participle. Accordingly, they are usually used to describe living things because non-living objects cannot experience feelings or actions.

Participle adjectives can be used as:

Both present and past participle are verb forms, used in formation of different tenses as well as the passive voice. Participle adjectives have the exact same form as the corresponding verb forms and this can make it difficult to distinguish between the two in sentences, especially when used after the verb "be." Compare the examples:

First of all, note how in the first example the present participle "entertaining" has a direct object "the crowd." So, it must be a verb form, part of the past continuous tense. Additionally, in the second example, we can add modifying adverbs like "very" or "extremely," but you can't do that to the first example: "They were very entertaining the crowd" does not make sense because "very" is a degree adverb that modifies gradable adjectives, not verbs. So, the second example is using the present participle as an adjective. Take a look at another pair of examples using past participles:

The first sentence is actually an example of passive voice, signaled by the addition of the agent using the preposition "by." The same sentence in the active voice would be "His friends surprised him for his birthday" where "surprise" is clearly a verb with a direct object (him) in the past simple tense. In the second sentence, however, "surprised" is an adjective that can be modified by a degree adverb like "very" and has an adjective complement (that all his friends showed up) which shows the cause of his surprise.

Another way to find out whether the participle is used as an adjective or verb form is to replace the verb 'be' with the verb "seem." If the participle is acting as an adjective, the verb "be" must be acting as a linking verb and so it must be interchangeable with "seem" which is another linking verb that takes an adjective as the subject complement.

Adding a noun, adverb, or adjective before a participle adjective forms a compound participle adjective that is still considered a participle adjective. Look at the following examples: