Bleeding Love
by Leona Lewis
Almost every adjective here is really a verb wearing a different hat. bleeding, piercing and draining end in -ing; crippled, frozen, closed and melted end in -ed. English turns participles into adjectives constantly, and the two endings do opposite jobs — one says what something does to you, the other what has been done to it. Getting bored and boring the wrong way round is among the most persistent errors learners make, and this card lays out seven examples to compare side by side. The nouns stay plain: heart, scars, doubt, pain, ground. B1+ is fair, and the chorus repeats often enough to drill against.
How to study this song
“Bleeding Love” carries 30 English words, 9 adjectives and 18 verb forms — 57 study entries in all, graded B1. Begin with doubt, ears and embrace: get those and most of the lines stop being guesswork. This one leans on its verbs: 18 distinct forms against 9 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level part of the list will already be familiar; the rest is what closes the gap.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| EN | ES | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| doubt | duda | dubbio | doute | dúvida |
What this song teaches you
Level · B1
- Vocabulary words
- 30
- Adjectives
- 9
- Word combos
- 11
- Expressions
- 10
- Verb forms
- 21
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
“Bleeding Love” is the international breakthrough single of the British singer Leona Lewis, released in 2007 after she won the talent show “The X Factor”.
Written by Jesse McCartney and Ryan Tedder, it builds from a pulsing, stop-start beat to a huge, emotional chorus that showcases Lewis’s powerful voice, turning the paradox of a “bleeding” yet joyful heart into a stadium-sized pop anthem.
Jesse McCartney and Ryan Tedder wrote it in February 2007 for McCartney’s own album, but his label turned it down; Tedder, who also produced the recording, reworked the arrangement and key for Lewis’s voice, and Simon Cowell took it at once.
Did you know?
The single topped the charts in the UK and went on to reach number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 — a rare American breakthrough for a British talent-show winner — as well as number one in many other countries. It was one of the best-selling singles of its year worldwide.
Charts & streaming
“Bleeding Love” sold in the millions globally and became one of the defining pop hits of 2007–2008, launching Leona Lewis as an international star. It remains her signature song and a fixture of late-2000s radio and streaming.
It spent seven weeks at the top in Britain, where it is certified 4× platinum, and in the United States it was the best-selling digital song of 2008 with 4.6 million downloads. It also earned Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.