Meaning of painted

[Garmasch]

ESL/EFL Test "English Grammar Exercise", question 5

All of the walls are ......... white.

(a) paint
(b) painted
(c) to paint
(d) painting

ESL/EFL Test "English Grammar Exercise", answer 5

All of the walls are painted white.

Correct answer: (b) painted

Your answer was: incorrect
All of the walls are paint white.
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why we use painted in this example cause if we use just paint we have the same idea?

[Alan]

Hi Garmasch,

You need painted here because it is the past participle.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Present Simple

[Aliraf62]

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Hi
I have two questions:
1. Is there any difference between:
All of the walls are painted in white.
All of the walls are painted white.
2. How can we utilize Google search results which gives the number of occurrences of a word or phrase on the internet to better understand the frequency of usage of a certain language structure?
e.g.: if you google +"painted in white" and +"painted white" (the plus sign and the quotation marks narrows the results to the exact phrase entered in between the quotes) you would get a much bigger number of occurrences for the former one in comparison to the latter. Is it enough proof of its prevalent usage among the English speakers?

[Alan]

Hi Alira,

I would say that if it is just one colour, then it would be painted white/green/blue or whatever. If you are talking about more than one colour or a pattern, then I would say painted in red and white/painted in squares/circles and so on.

Remember that Google doesn't make any recommendations as to which is correct, which is unusual, which is common. All it does is list what has been and is being written and spoken. The best way to discover an accepted usage is to look for the use of the word/phrase within a context.

Alan
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English as a Foreign Language
You can read my EFL story Progressive Forms