I am exciting???

I was just talking to my son and he reminded me of a very common mistake students of English make.He said to me...

"We are going to Hiroshima tomorrow. I am exciting!"

..when he really wanted to say "I am excited"

Adjectives like exciting/excited come from verbs, in this case to excite but the -ed and -ing endings are different

-ed is used for your/others' own feeling.

I was frightened
I am excited
He was worried about the test
She was really bored at the event

-ing is used for situations

The film was frightening
His story was really exciting
That news is worrying
That book was so boring

Hope this helps

...the idea of...

I was teaching last week and one of my students said something like...

"I have never been climbing, but I like climbing"

Because he has never been it is impossible for him to know whether he likes it or not.
What he wanted to say was...

"I have never been climbing, but I like the idea of climbing"

'to like the idea of...' is the phrasal verb we use to talk about things we would probably like if we tried them eg.

"I like the idea of working for Mazda"
"I like the idea of moving to Tokyo"
"I don't like the idea of having children"

Ta