This application discloses an event recognition method, including: obtaining, by a terminal device, a target sentence used for recognizing a type of a target event; processing, by the terminal device, a target sentence based on an event recognition model, to obtain the type of the target event, the event recognition model being used for determining the type of the target event by using a trigger word in the target sentence and at least one context word of the trigger word, the trigger word being used for indicating candidate types of the target event, and the candidate types including the type of the target event; and outputting, by the terminal device, the type of the target event. According to the technical solutions of this application, an event recognition process is performed by using a trigger word and a context word of the trigger word. Such a word classification method for event recognition can improve recognition efficiency, and reference to the context word can improve accuracy of the event recognition.