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Active and Passive Adjectives: surprising or surprised?
What’s the difference between adjectives ending in –ing and –ed?
The difference is that active adjectives, ending in –ing, express the idea that someone or something causes a certain effect. Passive adjectives, which end in –ed, express that someone or something experiences this effect. Note that the pairs that cause the most trouble are derived from emotive verbs. This effect, therefore, is an emotion.
interesting: causing interest
interested: experiencing interest 		Actors are usually interesting people.
I’m interested in their lives.
exciting: causing excitement
excited: experiencing excitement 		Star Wars is a very exciting movie.
I still get very excited whenever I see it.
boring: causing boredom
bored: experiencing boredom 		I also love those boring, intellectual European movies:
You’re bored for hours, but think about them for weeks!
amazing: causing amazement
depressing: causing depression 		Most people find Dancing in the Dark amazing, but depressing...

amazed: experiencing amazement
depressed: experiencing depression

I loved it. I was amazed at the direction and the music. My friend was extremely depressed, though.
It’s useful to know that active and passive adjectives related to emotive verbs are very similar to their counterparts in Portuguese. Note the pairs interesting and interested, depressing and depressed, irritating and irritated and convincing and convinced.

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